Page 39 of Madame X

“You shouldn’t make him angry, ma’am. It’s not smart. You got a tiger by the tail, you best not rile him. Know what I’m saying?”

“Classic apologetics for domestic abuse, Len.” My voice is raspy again. I don’t think I’ll have bruises, though.

“I’m not apologizing, just saying.”

“Apologetics is—you know what, never mind. Thank you, Len. That will be all.”

“Okay, then.” A pause. “I’ll be by tomorrow, with the designer.”

“Designer?”

“The outfit, for that rich bastard kid’s event.”

“Jonathan, you mean.”

“Yeah, whatever. They’re all the fucking same.”

I don’t answer. I feel my eyes grow heavy. Ignore the turmoil in my heart, in my head, ignore the burn in my throat and the sting in my eyes.

I hear the noise of my front door being replaced, and then silence.

I sleep.

Darkness. It is thick and raw and ravenous. A rumbling beast, with gnashing teeth. Red eyes, luminous orbs.

I stumble through the hungry blackness on bare feet. Stub my toe, feel a new stab of pain pierce the all-over agony as a toenail is ripped away.

Another beast, with glowing white eyes. Loud, roaring.

Howls, wailing, rising and ululating and deafening, all around me. So many monsters, iron-fleshed and fast, smashing heedless through the blackness, bright eyes and glowing red tails.

Stumble, my path in the darkness lit by lightning, my bones shaken by thunder, my trail erased by a deluge of cold rain. I am not weeping or screaming, because I hurt too badly to do so, because to weep requires breath, and I have no oxygen, no breath, lungs scorched from the hungry flames.

Flames.

They are somewhere behind me, still flickering and smelling of roasted flesh.

The beasts circle around me, roaring, flashing their too-bright eyes, claws reaching, trailing bandages and needles.

Squares, endless squares above me. Squares pierced with a million, million dots. One hundred and ten thousand four hundred and twenty-four dots, black holes spiked into the white squares.

Voices, buzzing around me like echoes from a thousand years ago.

Words. Sounds that should be comprehensible, but aren’t. Words, words, words, that mean nothing. Nothing.

Loss.

Agony.

Grief.

Agony.

A face, over and over and over.

Dreams of flames.

Dreams of darkness.