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Mirage sets his sights on a building so impossibly flat that he is certain the sugar-crusted pancake he had for an early breakfast this morning was thicker. Across the street from the illusion of the Flatiron Building, he darted his eyes along the many windows dotting its visage, expecting to find a stark image of the orange sky from another, opposite window—the other end couldn’t be farther than a meter or two away. Through the hazy lines of pedestrians passing his stationary self, he could make out shadows cast upon the glasspanes shuttered by cloth curtains; these silhouettes seemed to crouch, prance, and emote in melodrama. He can envision himself inside, too, standing between the choking brick walls and throwing his arms out, placing them flat against either side.
He slackens his neck and directs himself to the ornate bottle cradled in his arm. “I do not think I am the intended audience for these types of attractions,” he remarks in disappointment.
A drone vibrates from the delicately crafted vehicle, a projection of words like a radio signal intercepted by his brain, and Nashala replies, “It is a wonder, though, isn’t it? ‘How is something so immensely slender able to last fifty years?’ is the only thought on my mind when I bear witness to it.”
“Iron foundation?” Mirage bluntly answers, “It is half of the name.”
“You’re no fun,” she jokes, tutting despite her lack of a corporeal form to smack her tongue with. “I am sure it’s a trick of the eye, regardless.”
Glancing upwards briefly, he considers lending credence to that theory. “Perhaps we can view it from its frontend?”
“Mm, there wouldn’t be any harm in it,” she supposes, giving him the go-ahead to venture up to the other street.
His paces, deft and deliberate, roll onto the aged concrete, the toes of his shoes continually falling short of the seams that separated the slabs. A chill wafts through the air and hugs his bare face as he weaves past passersby. On the evening before a major, world-altering event, the streets were far more crowded than he could’ve predicted. The citizens of New York are stubborn people, he figured that from the few days they had spent amongst them.
Setting his feet upon the precipice of the curb, he waits for a respite between the dashing cars to cross. Though, as previous experiences with this goal would tell, it will not be a moment, but a gruelling length of time which aches his irritable legs. Eventually, when a person to the right of him became exceedingly impatient, they journeyed on through the tiniest sliver of an empty road, an affront to danger Mirage is wary of. It pricks his steadfast mind and swells it until he’s emboldened by a wish to march on.
When a clear path offers itself to him, he does not idle about to weigh its sensibility before striding forward. Nashala’s vessel is held firmly against his chest, his arm flexing as it encircles her. He’s nimble enough to circumvent the oncoming cars, stepping as if his feet didn’t scrape the ground. Yet, with no more than a few meters left between him and the sidewalk, a Cadillac screeches to a halt, its headlights nearly pressing into his hip.
“Watch where you’re going, asshole!” the driver yells, slamming his palm into the horn and blaring it in Mirage’s ears. Without a breath to think, he leaps to the pavement, slightly frazzled by the close encounter with the demise of Nashala and himself. Nevertheless, he has escorted them to the nose of the building, and they can witness the misdirection it plays on them.
“Oh, it bulges out as it goes towards the end!” she says in amazement, as if it were more fantastical than her own nature. “Isn’t that so clever, Mirage?”
He studies its shape with narrow eyes. “It certainly fooled me…” he mumbles. Then, much louder, he continues, “Americans must be far more concerned with appearances than practicality.”
Nashala huffs and retorts, “Do not act like you were not bedazzled by the Empire State Building.”
“It’s the beautiful centrepiece of the city! And it has an observatory that overlooks the entirety of it!”
“All right, all right! I see your point.” She stifles a chuckle, which he still senses. “In any case, that is another one of my activities off the list. What’s next on it?”
Retrieving the hand-sized notebook from his pocket, he wets his thumb with a flick of his tongue and flips over the pages until he finds the dignified, symmetrical table of their planned activities. The pen nestled in the metal rings binding the book is tapped out gently, and he gashes a line through ‘View the Flatiron building’. A line below, written in his flowery handwriting that’s thin in its curves and heavy in its tips, is scribed four delicate words: ‘Eat a hot dog’.
“Do you think there is time for it?” he asks, voice strained with preemptive despondence, yet a fragment of hope.
She takes a beat longer to speak than could be expected for a positive answer to ensue. Softer than the wind, Nashala responds, “It is getting rather late… and you should get plenty of good rest before the ritual tomorrow.”
Mirage sighs but takes it in stride, as it is best for him to do. “Yes, I understand.” His shoulders slump without his input, as if the pads were made of steel.
An American hot dog wasn’t his ultimate aim, but it had been a sought-after delicacy for him since it had been extensively detailed in an exuberant tourist magazine. It was spoken of as if it were the finest cuisine New York had to offer him—a shimmering jewel in the heart of bustling plazas. Its packaged pork, boiled and ripened to a tender texture, sits between a plush, finely cut bun, like a quaint river streaming down a picturesque valley. Slathered with a garnish of assorted pickled vegetables, thinly cut browned onions, and a restrained helping of saline ketchup and tangy mustard, which meet and draw apart along the length of it, there was no desire greater for him.
Possibly noticing his lips curling downwards, moustache in tow, Nashala promises, “The very first minute after we complete the ritual, we can order one at the most prestigious hot dog stand in the city; you will surely be famished after all that fighting.”
Her words breathe a warm relief over him amid the frigid dusk. “Out of your pocket, I hope. I will be the one with the duty of fighting for you and the Djinn,” Mirage negotiates, even if that was her expertise.
“I will consider it if you do not allow me to get scraped.”
“When have I ever?” he sarcastically gloats, something he hardly indulges himself in, whether in jest or not.
They giggle amongst themselves, the building and the teeming street outside their perception as they do so. The busyness subsides ever so slightly as people weary from their jobs trickle into their homes, allowing it to be almost unnoticeably less difficult to manoeuvre the streets. Lingering sunlight fades as their surroundings glow under sodium streetlights, the mix of sources colouring everything in a pale orange.
Nashala’s pinkish glow spreads across Mirage’s chest like a pulsating alarm of the approaching night. “We should hurry back to the hotel now, shouldn’t we?” she asks, urgency far from her steady tone.
“I shall go hail a taxi, then,” he promptly abides, taking a step towards the road before being halted.
“No, the walking distance is not too great. We can save a bit of our holiday allowance,” Nashala suggests.
“Hm. How small is it?”
“From what I can gather from the time we’ve spent in the city… no longer than 30 minutes,” she estimates, her attentiveness to measurements still astonishing to him after so long together. “It can be shortened down to 20 if you cut through an alley or two, however.”
Mirage furrows his brows at the implication of performing such a reckless action. “Would that not expose us to riskier possibilities? It would be safer to take a taxi back.”
“I suppose…” she mutters, “But you are adept enough to ward them off—swift, too. We both saw how you flew on the street.”
“I do not believe it would be a good idea to risk your well-being like this. You told me not to bring my gun in case of illegality. I am unsure of how effective I can be.” His hesitancy streams from him like tentative sweat.
Her voice dampens, as soft as untuned radio speakers. “I trust you with my life, Mirage. You will get us back unharmed.” Playfully, she adds, “And we can save the taxi fare for another hot dog, as a token of appreciation for your efforts.”
With a groan loosening into an accepting murmur, he agrees. “As you wish. Guide me as you may.”
Listing out every single direction to the minutest detail, Nashala orientates him through the many streets to their destination: The Baroness. Slipping around sharp bends and out of the way of the rowdy New Yorkers, he keeps them on pace without a single falter in his steps. Windows blink on in an arbitrary rhythm, never a full row horizontally or vertically. Light spills into everything; the void of night is but a tint that shades the more ghastly appearances of the city. It soon became obvious how it coined the moniker ‘The City That Never Sleeps’.
With few streets cut across—thankfully, with crosswalks pinned on either side—there is little distance between them and their hotel. Vehicle fumes muddy the air and taint his deep inhales. Mirage has never been one to overrule Nashala’s requests, even with his heightened immunity to her persuasive nature, though he cannot doubt his anxieties pertaining to this endeavour. He knows he’ll fight whatever force crawls for a swipe at her until he is only tangled hair and scattered teeth, yet his primary thought is how she may fare in the confrontation. The image of her tattered did not come easily for him.
On his heel, he’s stopped dead in his tracks, tensing his foot and making it sore. Nashala lifts her voice and announces, “That alley, to your left. Pass through it, and we won’t be far off.”
Mirage turns his head and leans forward to take a peek at this alleyway’s innards. Only a couple of meters into the dense space, general illumination starkly cuts off in a diagonal line. Its floor is grimy and depressed, pooled with murky rainwater that must be days old. On the left, a fire escape, glistening with speckled refractions, hangs its battered ladder low enough to be obtrusive but not to be climbed. The exhaust fan fixed to the opposite building sputters steam high into the air, the tightly packed brick walls smeared with dust. Strewn paper grocery bags line a doorstep like a ragged carpet. A rancid smell emanates even from the sidewalk—notes of rotting meat and fish blood collide in his nostrils.
“Are you confident of this?” Mirage questions, masking his desperation to grimace at the assault on his senses.
“We will be fine. It is only a passage after all,” she urges.
Without another objection, he complies and responds with a simple, “Alright,” treading forward and then into the maw of the alley.
Pincered by the two dank buildings, he darts his eyes between the neglected ground and the area directly ahead of him. His gloves become riddled with folds as they clench Nashala’s surface harder—a remnant of his utmost poise holds him back enough not to chip her details. No matter how expansive it may be, he pulls his shoulders in so as not to graze a single thing. Without their direct proximity to the mouthy droves of others, everything creaks and yawns and patters and stings, as if the alley were a predator preparing to swallow its prey.
Suddenly, the metal scaffolding of the fire escape brays at the seeming immediate gain or loss of weight upon it. The wind swings and strikes against Mirage’s flanks, then rises past him. A segment of the world chokes with unwanted occupancy, coughing and spitting the intruder to no avail. Briskness in the atmosphere thaws, and its vacuum is stuffed with feverish panting.
Nashala mutters in a fretting amount of insistence, “Behind you.”
As agile as he can, he turns in a fraction of an instant, his surroundings warped from the motion, and the silhouette of a man takes a moment to come into focus. When it does, it takes the clamping of his cheek between his teeth not to yell out, his taut features spelling out his fear. This thing, hunched yet still meeting him at his level, is streaked and spluttered with blood. The hem of his damp shirt is frayed and snipped, his battered jacket flecked with stains. His skin is as pale as fig sap, and the dull, greasy black hair cuts into its face like a beaded curtain. However, what does come through is his irises, too crimson to be a colour feasible for a human eye to have.
“Hello, stranger,” it greets with a lick of hurbis, “Not every day a man of your grandeur is amongst such squalor.”
Mirage cannot muster so much as a gasp to reply with. The only nerves still active are those in his arms and stomach. He continues to stare in disbelief, fixated on the jagged grin.
After the few seconds allotted for him to speak pass, it asks, “What would bring you down here, hm?”
Shamefully, his first thought is one of vindication for his worries—his next is how awful it would be for that to be his last thought. The notable absence of a holster for his gun is now a horrific lightness. Burying Nashala into the nook of his left arm, he gradually slips his hand from her and to his hip, hovering it there with jumping digits. In his pocket is a switchblade knife that he refused to allow her any knowledge of, understanding she may worry about its lawfulness also. During this time, his eyes haven’t left the figure before him, blaring in panic and caution.
Its head tilts as if its jaw is stone, a fracture in its blithe expression. “Come on. Say something. Scream! You expect me to–”
Slashing the space between them, Mirage draws the knife from his pocket, knuckles white over its hilt. The weapon’s apex scrapes the meeting of its neck and chin, stuttering over the stubble. His thumb guides it upwards with the desperation for an incision, only denting its pallid skin. They are all entirely still: him, her, it, and the knife. Then, as if his arm had been stripped down to its muscle, it’s encircled over the forearm by an amorphous red. It is when it squeezes and palpates him that he recognises its origin as a hand of the monster.
The hand, broad enough to suffocate him with its palms to his face, comes into view as the faint adrenaline fades. The fingers are swollen and prolonged, and end in nails tipped sharper than his pocket knife. Though appearing blood-stained, there is no hint of wetness, or the flakiness of dried residue—it must be imbued, like an outward manifestation of overconsumption. Briefly, it constricts his forearm enough to pinch his bone, but then it lets up, allowing him alleviation without release.
“Now, you think I’d just let you get a swipe at me like that? Not a chance, friend,” it ridicules, the grin returns to pull at his cheeks.
Brine hits Mirage's nostrils as he gathers the words to speak. “Step away from us at once,” he demands.
“Ah, that’s more like it.” A hand travels over to the underside of his wrist. “Such haughtiness in your voice; nothing to show for it, though.”
“I will not hesitate to put an end to you.”
“Seems you’re a little preoccupied for that.” It gestures with a nod to Nashala, Mirage’s arm so unyielding and secure around her that his hand is tucked beneath.
His muscles burst with heat at its simple regarding of her. “You are too vile to be speaking down to me.”
He reels his foot back and grits and bares his teeth, taking no pause before lunging it forward to knock the monster’s legs from the ground like a bowling pin. On the inside of his loafer, through the vibrations, he feels how the shoe’s leather skims its stiffened pants and soars past it. His foot lifts far further than where he imagined it’d go, the peak of its ascent at the mid-section of the stranger’s thighs. Then Mirage’s eyes scream open, and the world plummets as he comes to meet the angle his leg has created. But, before his back can slam into the damp concrete, he’s brought into a stasis and held by his forearm intensely enough to leave a week-long mark.
“You think this is my first soirée? Try kicking me all you want,” it boasts. The copious amount of arrogance seeping from it dries Mirage’s mouth in distaste. “Why, this may as well be a party; you’re like my dance partner at my whim, aren’t you?”
Mirage grunts and steels his heels on the toe of the monster’s tattered shoes. He’d lug his arm back to regain his footing, but it’d run the risk of putting his already precarious stance into jeopardy and harming Nashala. Each of the fingers that clutch the knife become numb as blood drains to his slanted body. A rigid pain sears the skin where he is held, all layers from sleeve to muscle pulled towards the monster like it is a black hole.
Hot breath clouds in front of him. “What will it take for you to leave us be?”
“You can start by dropping that there knife of yours.” A claw trails to the height of his fist and teases the hilt as if he requires guidance. A shiver unsettles his tight jaw, and his teeth grind together.
Begrudgingly, he groans and accepts. “Fine.”
The blade slips from his open palm and spikes the ground, clattering on the stone in a resounding and pathetic tantrum. His hand remains splayed for a moment as if stuck in shock from the surrender—the fingers then curl to their core and ball back into a fist. The monster snickers cruelly at its request being so duly followed. Tilting its head up, its free hand fixes its slouched hat as it relishes in the positional advantage.
“My, I thought that’d take even a little ‘convincing’,” it says with ugly pride. “Class and brains, it seems. Not as common as you’d imagine.”
Thinning his eyes, Mirage sneers. “If it can be believed that you have had exposure to class.”
Its smile stretches, and its grip strengthens. “Best believe I’ve fed off primmer men than you.”
“‘Fed off’?” he repeats, pushing his brows down. When his focus blinks to the stranger’s mouth, its unusually lengthy canines, like those of a ferocious lion, are no longer reasoned to him as the result of severe genetic disruption. Its scarlet-streaked hands throb with greyed veins he had glossed over. Its stained and torn clothing becomes a far worse omen than brawler’s blight.
“Exactly as it sounds,” the monster answers, the light from the street fading as its skulking form looms.
Mirage’s visage, which had been temporarily laden with sternness, droops back into a melting fear that sinks all his features. He forces Nashala impossibly closer until it aches his ribs to do so. Feet that had propped themselves against its shoes lose their hold as his legs turn torpid from the drain of vigour in his limbs. Heat flushes his stomach and then dissipates in a flash, leaving him hollow.
Its eyes scan him briefly, then they meet his frightened ones, and then they shoot open in gleeful surprise. “You didn’t know I was a vampire?!” it cackles without any room for breathing, “Never mind your ‘brains’. You haven’t a damn clue in the world!”
Parched lips make it onerous to formulate a response, but his enflamed throat whines out a mumbled question, “Are you going to feed on me?”
The vampire’s claws tear Mirage’s sleeve and break skin. “How I would love to, pretty boy.” Its tongue flicks out and caresses the front side of its jagged teeth. “But I don’t need a patron gunning for my neck because I slaughtered one of their soldiers.”
He’s yanked up with such intensity that he is sure it almost dislocated his arm. The veil of distance is shattered, and they’re no more than a few centimetres apart, clothes shifting against each other. Their knees press together as his buckle from the sheer terror of the proximity to uninhibited evil. Its face swallows Mirage’s vision, torrid and rotting breaths slithering over him. If it were not for Nashala, they would be flat against one another, and there wouldn’t be a fragment of hope for him. Despite that—even in the absence of hope—his arm would still not let go.
A frigid hand slinks up his firm back, nails tapping at the nape of his neck until the digits make their home in the wisps of hair at the base of his scalp. It strokes what the hairtie doesn't catch, and it nudges his head up, closer to it, until a whisper could be both heard and felt.
“I still can’t ignore the temptation, anyway,” the vampire mutters, every word punctuated by its clasping fingers.
Something so vicious and barbaric being called upon by godlike entities was not a reality that sat rationally in Mirage’s brain. To believe they’d go to these extremes to see their ideals through put into question his presence at the maelstrom. And to be toyed with now, before the war has even struck the air, wavers his confidence in participating in this fight—it would be entirely so if it weren’t for Nashala and the Djinn’s wishes. His lungs catch themselves on the vampire’s scent, his mouth hanging agape.
“What will you be doing with me, then?” he asks quietly.
“Just want to scope out my competition,” it beffudingly answers with little malice, “Or apparent allies, I suppose.”
A burst of selfish inquisitiveness rushes throughout Mirage. “What is your verdict on me?”
It leans in, lids gliding shut as it says, “If you’re my enemy, I’ll hunt you down and tear you to pieces.”
The hair pinned beneath its hand is kindled and lifted, as if its statement were a rise in the atmosphere. He swelters with a stuffiness that drips sweat down his temples and gets caught on the claw of the vampire’s thumb. A supernatural quality, power, or ability that it must contain draws blood to his face and weighs his cheeks with it.
“You should know, I will be more capable when I have my gun,” Mirage counters to save face, scarcely.
“I’d love to see that,” it drawls. “Put up a fight—get your blood rushing. It’s already tantalising.” Its voice is wet with an unabashed appetite.
His brows slant up at the recognisable human vice of craving, like a bakery’s window at dawn. As if ordered to, his heart screams against his ribs.
There’s no one else he has allowed nearer to him than Nashala before, and this monster is especially the first with such an overwhelming frame to do so. The spells of his perfumed scent mingling with the vampire’s stench of viscera is like that of ignited charcoal, or gasoline and chlorine swept together in a glass—he’s not sure. Its form juts and prods him as if there are overgrowths of bones underneath its limbs and chest. Every breath, which all land on Mirage’s ears, pushes its core further into his until it seems they’re not an atom apart. The sensation does not serve to assuage his bumbling nerves.
“You don’t seem quite so terrified now. Not of me,” it questions with what he assumes to be a fallacious understanding.
Mirage shrinks away in its hold, his arm limp as his defensiveness is spent. “You must be mistaken.”
The vampire suddenly nuzzles into the crook of his neck, its rough stubble grinding into his collar. Its nose buries itself into him and applies considerable pressure; meanwhile, its tongue rides along his throat. He shivers and jumps, hard to restrain the reaction in such a mental and physical position. Pulling his lips apart, his teeth punch into each other as he dampens his thronging thoughts.
It lifts its head from his neck and looks at him with glazed eyes. “Not a hint of fear on you anymore.” Its smile spreads wider. “Suppose I was mistaken; this adrenaline is for something else.”
Mirage scoffs at the surety he exudes. “Am I to trust you over my own body?”
“Your body says a lot more than you’re letting on.” Its mouth moves in lethargy as it goes on, “If you don’t admit it, I’m sure it will.”
Then, his arm is returned to his centre slowly, like fine porcelain. The vampire doesn’t loosen its clutching hand throughout the motion, and a minuscule gap arises between them to allow his appendage to be held there. His resigned hand’s fingers are flopped to the middle, knuckles appearing smooth and pampered underneath the white, silk glove. It’s propped up with utter importance, like a spectacle to behold that carries an unsaid beauty. The pad of its own finger traces a circle over his palm, urging the digits to attention.
A groan flusters the silence, a deep rumble in its broad chest, which ruffles Mirage. “You just tell me ‘when’.”
Its claws pinch the tip of the glove, slipping the garment off with an unforeseen sensitivity. Sweat-slathered skin is hit by the muggy, congested space between them, and he reels at the stripping; his arm jerks back but quickly subdues. His eyes squint and grow hazy as his focus fluctuates on the vampire’s grip and its terrifyingly morbid joy. Though its lack of humanity should dictate that its body should be cold, its temperature is pulsatingly warm.
Stroking upwards, its claws trace over the bony pillows on the inside of Mirage’s fingers. Their points scrape lightly like a knife scoring dough—a pale streak is left in their wake. A crude and cursory study of its face reveals its strict attention, so strict it may have forgotten that the hand has an owner. Its maw slopes, revealing a drooling mouth, with saliva dripping from its fangs like a damp cave ceiling. A pang of fear sends a chill throughout him, culminating in a tremor along his restrained wrist.
The vampire’s index trails up his ring finger, each dip into the creases a step closer to something foreboding that ruptures his already racing heart. At the centre of his fingertip, its claw rests and jabs into where the pad rises. Its force exerts steadily, expanding from the push of a pin to the stab of a needle. Mirage bites his lip to stifle a yell until the pain of it is stronger than in his finger. After a few seconds, the sharp nail recedes from where it had been pricking him and falls from his hand entirely. At the point where it must have punctured, a hot liquid begins to stream out of the wound, reaching no farther than a single knuckle before being licked up.
He throws his head back with a harsh gasp, in paralysing shock as his blood is lapped at like a dessert. Hunched down, the creature does not let a drop spill as it works the nick it inflicted. Its tongue strokes over the tip, its surface like wet soil that drags along his finger. Sounds of satisfaction flow from it as it continues to swallow more and more; there’s a perverse quality Mirage hardly allows himself to ponder. He’d pictured himself being drained from the neck—expecting no less when the vampire had planted itself in it earlier—that is what has been told in tales he has known since infancy. This, however, is more intimate than he can wrap his brain around. It seems less for the blood itself, but rather for his blood.
In a beat, the finger is taken into its maw, sucked on for any remnant of the quenching liquid. Mirage’s throat spits out a discomforted blech, his lips quivering in abhorrence. A cold sweat mutes his senses as he awaits the digit’s excision by the vampire’s knife-tipped teeth. Though in opposition to its demeanour, it suckles it tenderly, never more than grazing the finger with its fangs. Riding over the wound, its tongue flakes the misplaced skin, tearing at it lightly enough not to summon any more blood than needed. The slick muscle blankets the underside of his finger, far more delicate than the Baroness’ silk sheets could be. His cheeks blister as he watches how its lips encase him, tugging him closer into its sultry mouth without any reservations—his eyes plaster shut after only a moment of gazing.
After another minute of its gentle sucking, the vampire releases his finger with a pleased sigh. In a matter of seconds, it straightens out its kneeling legs and looms over him once again, no less imposing than before. The hands on Mirage’s neck and wrist slump from their place and rest limply at its sides. Its tongue coasts its cut lips for any leftovers, lavishing in the spotted remains.
A low noise, the closest to a growl a human larynx could allow, scatters from its gullet. “That was one fine appetiser,” it says, its grin now borne of delight. “Should make it easy to scour you out tomorrow.”
Mirage no more than twitches from the position the vampire had placed him into, his head fixed ahead where its striking collar now is. “Scour me out?” he replies, words heavy as if he’s half asleep, a dream not completely ripped from him yet.
“I’ll be seeing you, Mirage.” It shifts past him and squeezes a hand on his shoulder, nose nestled in his hair. “If you catch wind of ‘The Drifter’, you’ll know I’m near.” Quicker than Mirage could turn his head—assuming he was able to will himself to do so—it disappears behind him with a rustle of the air.
Everything in the world ices over with a sheen of frost, biting at his naked hand. The screeching of speeding cars stings the previous silence, and the city swarms his isolated mind. A restaurant worker throws a metal door open and slams down the steps, a trash bag held far enough out to avoid staining their apron. They arrive at a dumpster and sling it up onto a stacked pile of similarly bulging bags. After their chore is complete, they wipe their hands with a rag from their back pocket. When they begin their egress from the alleyway, Mirage is caught by their eye. They give him a confused look before choosing not to pay him any mind, shutting the door behind them with force.
He blinks back to reality as the sound resonates in his bones, the first consideration on his mind being that of Nashala tucked into his centre. Without pause, he brings her out incredibly marginally, feeling as if she’s now at arm's length.
“Nashala, tell me, what just happened?” Mirage asks with a touch of panic in his awoken voice.
Her light shines a dim colour between them, one that doesn’t reach far past his face. Following a deliberate lull in the conversation, she answers, “You tell me.”