Page 53 of What Rough Beast

“They’ll probably say he’s a boy with a bright future ahead of him,” she eventually says, deflated.

“And you’re just a girl who got fucked,” I say.

“So, what do I do?” Becca asks, sniffing.

“What do you want to do?” I ask her.

It’s something no one asked me when it happened, a question I might not have had an answer for if they had.

“I don’t know,” Becca says, shakily. “I don’t . . . I don’t know.”

I’m familiar with the not knowing, the empty dread, a false bottom in your stomach when you think nothing can go any lower, and then somehow it does.

“Yeah, I didn’t, either,” I say softly.

I didn’t—until I did. I think of the things I’ve needed lately, trying to find something that can help Becca. I said I needed someone to listen, and averageamericanmale showed up in my DMs, the universe providing. Except . . . my gaze flicks to the egg, where something presses against the surface, extending, stretching.

Then I told Widow I needed my ring—and a deer brought it to me. Then I needed the cat to live, and she did, against the odds. Now her face is being stitched back together by something the vet hasn’t seen, and neither of us is going to show it to him. Because that cat is going to live, and it’s got jack shit to do with any human intervention. She’s going to live because I said I needed her to—and I said it in front of the egg.

I stand up, walk over to the incubator, phone pressed against my ear. The cat rises, stretches, yawns, the fresh growth moving with it. Then she sits up, curls her bony tail around her feet, newly growing flesh halfway to the tip, and begins to purr.

“Ava?” Becca asks. “Are you there?”

In his cage, the puppy gets up, comes to the front, sits stoically, head raised. The two watch as I open the incubator, feel the heat hit my face, the loamy dark smell filling my lungs.

“Becca,” I ask. “What do you want?”

There’s a choking sound, words sticking in her throat.

“What do you want?” I ask again, my voice harder this time.

“I. Want. Him. To. Pay.” Becca says each word distinctly, forcing the syllables through her teeth.

“Then he will,” I say, and I hang up.

Outside, a cowbird calls, liquid notes seeking another to answer. I reach inside the incubator, cupping the egg in both hands. It fills them both now, the weight shifting as it undulates. I bring it to my face, breathe it in. I press it against my cheek, feel a pulse, wait for mine to match it.

“I need something bad to happen to Murphy Ricks,” I whisper.

It stretches, pushing against my skin. Something brushes my cheek, like a caress, and I set it back inside the incubator, watching as it drinks my tears.

Thirty-Three

Micah

“RIP, Jerkoff Dropbox,” Ethan says, raising his beer.

Murph, Blake, and I raise ours as well, but I wince when they clink together. Blake slams his down on the counter, turning to Murphy.

“Dude, what the fuck were you thinking?”

“Seriously, man,” Ethan says. “You just put it on a stand in the closet?”

I close my eyes, take another swig.

“And put a shirt over it, in case she looked,” Murph says in his defense. “But left an opening for the camera. I don’t think anybody wants to see a video of the inside left pocket of my button-up.”

“I’d still take the audio, though,” Blake says glumly. “And now we’ve got shit.”