Page 129 of Molt
“You said you’d love me until there was nothing left of you.”
“I did.”
“And there almost isn’t.”
I look down at myself.
She’s right.
My shirt hangs on a body that is barely mine. One shoulder collapsed. Ribs missing. Four fingers. One eye dim. My legs feel hollow. My teeth loose. I’ve been emptied out for a promise I made beside a dying woman. “I loved you.”
Lenora cries. “Love me now.”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“LIAR!” The scream ruptures something inside Sarah. Her abdomen distends. She doubles over. Then her stomach splits.
Not open completely.
A narrow seam tears from beneath her sternum toward her navel. Blood pours between her fingers.
I grab her. “Sarah!”
Something pale moves inside.
A hand.
My hand.
Five fingers. Pressing outward beneath the opening.
I vomit.
Sarah screams.
The hand pushes through. Attached to nothing I can see. My missing finger completes itself. Then wrist. Bone. Muscle. A piece of me being born from her.
“Get it out!”
I grab the wrist.
The second I touch it, my own right hand goes numb.
I look down. The fingers are fading. Skin collapsing. Bone disappearing.
Transferred.
The hand emerging from Sarah becomes more solid.
Mine becomes less.
She sees.
“No.”
“It’s okay.”
“No!”
