Two of the happiest bastards who ever had the nerve to leave.
And oblivious of all to come.
The night was long, and loud with Clay’s thoughts.
At one point, he got up to use the bathroom and found the Murderer, half-swallowed, on the couch. Books and diagrams weighed him down.
For a while, he stood over him.
He looked at the books, and the sketches on the Murderer’s chest. The bridge, it appeared, was his blanket.
Then the morning—but morning wasn’t morning at all, it was two in the afternoon, and Clay woke in bed with a fretful start, the sun on his throat, like Hector. Its presence in the room was huge.
When he got up he was totally mortified; he scrambled. No. No. Where is he? Quickly, he stumbled to the hall, got outside, and stood on the porch in his shorts. How could I have slept so long?
“Hey.”
The Murderer watched him.
He’d come round from the side of the house.
* * *
—
He got dressed and they sat in the kitchen, and this time he ate. The old oven with its black-and-white clock had barely clicked over from 2:11 to 2:12, and he’d eaten a few slices of bread, and a fair few murderous eggs.
“Keep going. You’re going to need your strength.”
“Sorry?”
Now the Murderer chewed and sat, he was opposite.
Did he know something Clay didn’t?
Yes.
There’d been calls from the bedroom through the morning.
He’d slept and shouted my name.
* * *
—
One long sleep and now I’m behind.
That was Clay’s recurring thought as he continued to eat in spite of himself—and he would fight to scratch himself free.
Bread and words. “It won’t happen again.”
“Sorry?”
“I never sleep that long. I barely sleep at all.”
Michael smiled; yes, he was Michael. Was that a past lifeblood flowing through him again? Or was that just how it appeared?
“Clay, it’s okay.”