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Chapter Twenty-Five

LUNA

The ticking has a scratchy sound before the sharp tap. The scratch is purple. The final tick is gold.

The door to the draining house creaks when I open it, and when I close it behind me, it squeals a deeper note. Fluorescent light comes through a crack in the ceiling.

Copper coins are stacked on the table where he took my blood, from head to foot in an uneven shape. The heights of the stacks are as uneven as a city skyline.

I just want to give you a reason to be happy when I’m gone .

I lean over. There’s a coinless rectangle in the middle.

Carmine is lying across the table. I can only see him below the collar. Gray suit. Black shirt. Perfect and straight. Precision and power. Fuck him. Even in a dream, I’m pissed off.

You left me here, I say in a dream voice.

After I get you clothes, I’m going away for a few days.

Irrelevant.

He’s visible above the collar now, but I can’t see his face under the ball of twisting, multicolored gummi worms. His head is encased in their squirming bodies.

I push the coin stacks, creating a waterfall of copper, and drink from it like a woman dying of thirst.