Page 44 of When the Night Comes Knocking

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Jane’s hand was bleeding. She hadn’t noticed it before down in the basement, after she’d clambered around in the broken glass to find the key to her and Aiden’s handcuffs. She hadn’t noticed it when his friend Lucas came knocking on the bookcase, asking Aiden if he could drive him to the gas station up the road. She hadn’t noticed the white powder they offered her as they dabbed some against their own gums.

But once she was standing outside and down by the road, the cool night air seemed to shake her from the syrupy daze that had spilled over her brain. She wiped her bloody hand against the thin material of her black dress, feeling the hungry face of the fraternity house yawn at her back, ready to sink its teeth back into her.

When the familiar headlights of her brother’s Corolla slid into place, it did little to rid the prickling chill from her skin.

It was his stare that made it worse—the widening of Thomas’s twin brown eyes before they slipped into narrowed slits of slight revulsion. “Janey?” he said, and she fought to keep her face from completely crumpling. “Come on, get in.”

As quickly as she could, Jane crawled into the passenger side, trying to ignore the dangling handcuff still attached to her own wrist as it clacked against the door.

Of course Thomas then asked her what had happened—she would want answers too, if she received a weepy phone call asking to be picked up and found him in such a drunken state.

But she couldn’t think yet; it all felt far away somehow, like she was walking through a heavy cloud of mist. So instead, she focused on the blood pooling in her palm and the winding back roads that led to her dorm building.

“I see you didn’t take my advice,” he said.

Jane continued to stare silently ahead.

It was pitch black outside, the road lit up with only the reflection of the car’s headlights. They illuminated the thick forest of pine trees on either side of the road, with the back of an apartment complex peeking through on the left while the right side dipped down into a cavernous ditch of kudzu and tangled branches.

“Just sleep this off, okay?” Thomas said after another moment of weighted silence. “Drink some water and sleep in late tomorrow, and I bet whatever happened tonight won’t even feel like a big deal anymore.”

Jane’s bones and muscles felt on fire beneath her skin, like everything inside might soon burn up until she was nothing but a pile of ash on the passenger seat. She could still feel the friction of the rough brick scraping against her skin, could still smell the green apple whiskey as if the bottle were being held right beneath her nose, and suddenly her stomach threatened mutiny again.

Only this time, she couldn’t keep the nausea at bay.

“Oh, Jesus, are you gonna be sick?” Thomas asked, and Jane covered her mouth where the lipstick had surely been smeared out of place. “Let me pull over first, okay? I might have a grocery bag—”

But as Jane looked up at the road ahead of them, it became lit up by painfully bright headlights bearing down directly onto their own.

“Tommy!” she screeched, an identical sound to the tires across the pavement as her brother jerked the car to the right, toward the small bank along the roadside.

In the following weeks, Jane would imagine that the maneuver might have worked if the opposing pickup truck hadn’t already been so far in their lane, racing toward them like a wrecking ball, or perhaps if Thomas had just swerved left instead. Or perhaps if she had never existed at all.

But in the end, there was nowhere to go but down.

Their car was airborne for a small infinity, sailing down through the eager reach of tree branches and predatory kudzu until gravity forced its exacting hand.

When Jane awoke, it was to the sound of screaming.

Her body dangled against the seat belt. The steady flow of something wet poured down her face, turning the inside of her mouth metallic. She gasped for air, but each breath felt like a knife stabbing through her left side over and over. Beyond the ringing in her ears and the blurry fog drowning her brain, she could make out Thomas’s voice saying her name.

He sounds so scared, she thought and realized it was likely because she still hadn’t opened her eyes.

I’m alive, Tommy. I’m alive. I’m alive.

It took her several seconds to realize no words were actually coming out of her mouth. Painfully, drunkenly, she managed to open her eyes halfway. The airbag had already deflated in front of her, marked with a red imprint in the shape of her face. Outside the windshield, as the car creaked and moaned against the tree limbs, she saw a ghost hovering above the crushed hood—though when she opened her eyes fully, she could see it was only a tendril of milky smoke spiraling out from the engine.

Jane tried to speak, but her tongue felt like a dead thing in her mouth, limp and useless as her body. Her head felt close to bursting as she managed to turn her face toward her brother.

She regretted it instantly.

The sight of Thomas finally caused the vomit to escape from her in swift, sour bouts, until their screams rang out as one amongst the darkness.

Sixteen

and this time