Segment X: unedited

Dead. He was dead.

Gideon gritted his teeth, huddling deeper into the corner of the room. Dead. He wanted to be dead. Yet here he was, heartbeat jumping through his throat, moonlight whispering across his face with silky softness. He was trying to block out his surroundings – dead, he was dead – but he could feel the boards beneath his feet, splintering against his toes. Outside, thunder pounded against the ground, turning Hemlock, Louisiana, into a canvas of black mud and fallen branches. Every so often lightning would shatter through the sky. He couldn’t see it, because he was still staring stubbornly at the back of his eyelids, but he could feel it, white-hot and searing against his skin.

It felt like condemnation. That brisk moment of illumination, blinding in its clarity, hurt more fiercely than the hunger cramping in his stomach. The bruise on his eye. The split in his lip, which still hadn’t dried, and dribbled blood that tasted of anger and raspberry perfume.

He had just begun to drift again – dead, he was dead – when the wind shrieked, announcing the presence of the thunder. It crashed from the sky with such fury that he felt the floor tremble beneath it toes. It rattled his teeth, shaking every bone in his weary body.

That was what roused him. Not the thunder, but the aftershock. It roused a sudden panic in his chest. When he slowly stretched out his legs, calves cramping in pain, he was struck by his own words. Dead. Had his fear of his brother driven him to this? Keane, the relentless bully, who had stolen all else, was now coming after his life?

Gideon placed his hands flat on the floor, bent his knees, and pushed himself into a standing position. His head spun, and he staggered as he tried to move forward. He had always imagined near-death experiences as a continual stream of consciousness. He thought he would see his life, or the people contained within it, reeling before his eyelids like a slideshow of terror and withdrawal.

But he saw none of this. Instead, the room – and his mind – remained comfortingly blank. He dug his heels into the floor, straightening his shoulders, and used the momentum to propel him to the window. As he reached the sill his knees began to buckle. He groped for the sill, trembling fingers meeting cold mist, flaking paint.

Dead. He was dead. He blinked vapidly, trying to comprehend this welcome analysis. What else could explain the figure, cutting a white swath through the dark?

Leaves were everywhere. Windows, glowing with light, blinked in and out of the night like giant fireflies, settling heavy against the battered sky. Visibility was limited, but for some strange reason a figure kept appearing, stumbling against the wind. It was midnight – the streets should be empty, all sensible people ensconced within their houses.

Yet. The figure. Pale, wavering. It meandered towards him, fragile as candlelight, moments before it is snugged out.

Dead. He should have pulled back. Hidden again, head tucked against his knees and heart drumming patterns against his ribcage. But he remained standing. He leaned forward, forehead pressing against the lukewarm glass.

“Gideon.”

His muscles tightened involuntarily. His tongue darted out to feel the cavity of his lower lip, probing the damage Keane’s fists had left behind. He had been furious – eyes dark, jaw tense, meaty hands curled into fists. He had been waiting behind the mansion, poised to attack.

Dead. He had sworn to make his life a living hell. If, that is, Gideon was still alive by the end of the summer. But Gideon didn’t fear his twin, or the threats. Empty they were not, but for some unfathomable reason, he was not afraid any longer.

What was the use in being afraid? What new, terrible thing could he fear? Nothing changed, nothing varied. Beatings. Fists up skin. Alienation. Rejection. Death – a thought that had become almost welcome, comforting as the stars in the summer sky and the freckles that stuck themselves, glued by sunshine, to the bridge of his nose.

“Gideon!”

The voice was very real now. Reedy and breathless, but still real. It pierced through the pounding of the rain and the slow screaming inside his temples.

He closed his eyes. Dead. He was dead. He pressed closer to the glass, wishing to melt into it, to become a raindrop, falling into oblivion over and over. His shoulders tensed, spine stiffening as footsteps sounded.

“Gideon.” It was a whisper again. Ghostly. Still, he refused to turn. What was the use? Beyond merely fear – what was the use in life, in emotion, in feeling or caring about anything at all?

Fingers pressed into the base of his neck. They slid under the collar of his skirt, cold and wet as dead fish. Gideon jumped then, spinning on the heels of his blistered feet. The thunder crashed. Before the lightning could strike, illuminating this strange invader, something pressed against his mouth.

Skin – another mouth, lips chapped, corners turned down as if frowning. It tasted bitter, like regret, and then sweet, like something that had been withheld from him and finally granted. His hands moved of their own accord, wandering through the dark to rest on a waist that curved and pulled against the cotton of the shirt.

And then. Lightning, striking through the middle of the room and rendering everything a pure, dizzying shade of negative space. His wide open eyes met a set of pupils that contained the ocean, waves raging within cerulean irises.

“Lumi?” Dead. He was dead. Gideon felt bile rise in his throat. He dropped his hands, tilted his head, took in her tucked-away curls, felt her knee socks scratch against the leg of his trousers.

“Gideon.” She kissed him again, movements urgent, fingers still tucked in the collar of his shirt. This time she tasted salty – like tears, which wet his own lips as she turned her head.

“Get away from me,” he said weakly. He had come here to escape. This random apartment was his alcove, his haven for the night, and she had broken through. His lip throbbed, as if reminding him that he was fresh off of a beating. He had reached the end of his luck, and time – for him – was running short.

“I need help.” With her curls tucked away her features looked severe, eyes unnaturally large, face a touch too long and nose sharply pointed. “Please,” she added, words running together, “I can’t feel anything.”

Gideon pulled away. He was struck by her words, the irony ringing behind them. “Go away! You’ve done it. Well enough, anyway – Keane hates me. More than usual. I think he renounced me,” he said, and touched his lip.

“No, Gideon. I can’t feel anything.” She was sobbing, a keening that matched the horrific howling of the wind. “He beat me.”

“He beat us both! That’s what Keane does for a living – beat people down. How do you think he got so good at it?”

“The baby,” Lumi keened. “I can’t feel anything!”

And just like that, everything came rushing back. His old, familiar fear, settling like a fur coat over his wilted shoulders. Keane had already proven that he would stop at nothing to extract revenge. But the baby – it was his baby, for god’s sake – its death could mean horrible things. He would be guilty of murder. Capable of anything. Confident in his own danger, comfortable in the skin that had wreaked havoc to far too many lives.

He could not defy Keane. But he could defy logic – his own logic, which was telling him to turn and stop feeling and remember that he was dead.

He hated her. She had laid the blame of her actions upon him, and they had both suffered for it. Who he couldn’t hate, however, was the baby. It was innocent. Tucked beneath her heart, an unborn angel residing within a blue-haired monster.

It was not his baby. It was not his fear. His responsibility. But if nothing in life was his own, then what was he left with? A few broken memories, and the remnants of his nightmares?

Gideon took her hands. Gingerly, because he was still afraid of her beautiful eyes, and because he still hated her very soul. He steadied himself. He did not want to be heartless, but he could not forgive what she had done to him.

She would be lucky if his brother forgave her. Still loved her, at least enough to take care of his problems.

“Wait the storm,” he said. “In the morning, find Keane. He can take you to the hospital.”