Page 123 of The Butcher's Wife

The vehicles are still smashed together in the middle of the street, but the drivers are nowhere to be found. A few neighbors stand outside, wrapped in winter coats over their pajamas, phones pressed to their ears. One of them shouts after me, but I don’t stop to listen.

Gun in hand, I creep from house to house, looking for Dom’s unmistakable shape and praying I don’t find it on the ground.

If Marco took him, his death won’t be as quick as his mom’s, and I don’t give a damn if the police are on their way.

I find them, almost completely swallowed by the shadow of a towering, pale house. Two formless shapes merge into one dark horror.

“Dom,” I call out as I approach, gun raised in my hand.

The larger shadow moves.

“Don’t make a sound,” Dom murmurs to the man underneath him. When he looks to me, I can barely make out his eyes in the darkness.

“It’s over now,” I say. “She’s dead.”

I recognize Marco’s voice as he cries out in anguish.

“I have to take you to the hospital now. We have to go.”

Dom’s laugh is fragile. He turns to the man. “You hear that? Your mom’s in hell. Now, why don’t you go join her?”

Dom slashes his arm to the side and staggers to his feet, leaning heavily against the side of the house. His knife, bathed in blood, shines darkly from one of the streetlights. Dom sheathes it and turns to me, stumbling forward and nearly crushing me to the ground under his weight.

I’ve always loved how big he is, how much larger than life he feels, but right now, I hate it. I can barely keep him upright, and that’s with him supporting most of his own weight. I don’t know what I’ll do if he faints.

“Lost a lot of blood,” he says dreamily. “I love you. Don’t know if I said that yet. Thinking it a lot.”

My heart wrenches. He wasn’t supposed to get hurt. He’sDom—he’s invincible.

A tear slips down my cheek. “Dom, I love you too. I love you so much. Stay awake, okay? I still need you. I have to set you down right now. I’m going to get the car.”

“Don’t leave me,reginetta,” he whispers against my hair. “Stay with me.”

“I have to. I’ll be right back, I swear.”

I do my best to ease him to the ground, but he’s too big, and I drop him with a heavy thud into the grass.

“Don’t go,” he calls weakly after me as I sprint back to the cars.

“Are you okay?” an old man shouts at me from the sidewalk. I ignore him. In the distance, there’s a wail of an ambulance and police sirens.

I stop before the vehicles. Our car is hooked onto Marco’s, and the front of his is almost completely smashedin. I don’t know if either will work. I try ours first, diving in and yanking the gear stick to drive.

It revs uselessly for several long seconds until, in desperation, I scream through gritted teeth and swing the steering wheel to the side. It jerks free and slams into someone’s mailbox.

I tear through a patch of flowers and nearly crash into the side of the house where Dom is.

“Hey!” someone shouts from the street.

I stumble out of the car, and a bald man in a bathrobe marches up to me.

“What the fuck, lady! Are you fucking drunk?—”

I swing my gun at him.

The man stills. Distantly, a woman screams.

“Get back in the house,” I tell him. “Lock the door.”