Page 80 of What Rough Beast

Fifty

Ava

“Don’t watch,” Hailey says, squeezing my hand when I turn around.

“But it’s . . .” I look at her, still capable of being shocked. “It’s Ethan. He’s—”

“A real piece of shit, yeah,” she says. “I know.”

“Hailey!” Widow calls from beneath the tree. “I need you over here.”

“But . . .”

“Ava,” Hailey says calmly, guiding my hand to her belly. “I have everything I need from him.”

Under my palm her flesh is hard, swollen. “You’re—”

“Yeah,” she says, her voice small and quiet. “That’s why I didn’t want the Zertrenner, part of the reason, anyway.”

“What’s the other part?” I ask, dumbly following her lead, making noises with my mouth, trying not to hear the sounds coming from the dark, as a human being is torn to pieces.

“No payoff,” Hailey says lightly, hand resting on her stomach. “The Zertrenner can’t do shit for me compared to what the Brimleys will do for their grandkid.”

There’s a high wail from the trees, screaming, a wet, guttural tear, and the sound of chewing.

“Their only grandkid,” Hailey adds.

Widow rests at the base of the tree, partly curled around the egg, one leg at an awkward angle. “It’s okay,” she’s whispering, voice low and throaty. “It’s okay, don’t be scared.”

Don’t be scared, like coming into the world is a gift. Typhus is arriving to the sounds of skin tearing, the smell of gunpowder and blood, the white flash of a bone sticking out from under Widow’s kneecap. How could he not be scared? How could any of us, as we enter this place, learn where we are, and what we are fated to?

“I’m ready to go,” I say to Hailey, and she leads me to the tree.

Before me is the egg, the crack expanding, growing darker. Another fissure opens, and something white surges out, dripping onto the ground.

“Almost there, almost . . .” Widow says.

It splits, and a tiny hand emerges, fingers curling around the jagged edge. There’s a stretching in my shoulder, the last anchor giving away, my soul separating as it prepares to leave me behind, leave the dark nest of my body behind for something better, a new one, that doesn’t have a gaping hole at its center.

“Ava?” Micah’s voice is soft behind me, barely there.

I turn away from one monster to look at another.

Fifty-One

Micah

I don’t see anything but her; Ava Germaine is the entire world, her back the map of my future as I wait for her to turn, to say something, anything. She does, something white flowing from her mouth, eyes blank, the unseeing stare of a person who is nearly dead, someone else who has been broken, pieces left behind in the wake of Micah Harding.

When she speaks, it’s not to me. She turns to Hailey, points.

“Micah Harding crippled your brother.”

Fifty-Two

Ava

Hailey doesn’t ask for more words, doesn’t need them, can see the truth in my eyes. I’m a girl with nothing left, and no reason to lie.