Horus leaned forward clasping his hands together in a posture of total absorption.  It was a worn-out gesture that came up frequently in the sessions, just like the tired expressions he used.

"Go on," he said, coaxing Amy.

"Well...."  She turned away, her hand covering her chin.  She sought out the dark corner—the one place in the room, where the lights always cast deep shadows up near the ceiling. 

During the day, there was peace from the harsh flood of the halogen bulbs that mimicked the sun and the florescent tubes radiating ultraviolet rays in that spot.  At night, it was an area of consistency from the wavering, anemic nightlights.  It was a place of darkness.  If she could ever reach it, she would be able to hide there. 

"I don't really know what you want to hear." Her voice was distracted.  Her thoughts, far away.

"It's not about what I want to hear, it's about you opening up.  I know that the loss of your family has affected you deeply but to come to terms with it, you need to talk about it.  Tell me about your mother, your father, your brother."

Amy didn't want to talk about them.  Talking about them meant thinking about them.  And it meant remembering what she had done to them. 

The last night with her family lay scattered across her mind like shattered glass.  Each jagged shard reflected a moment in time—a broken picture that never quite came together.

She had been sick for two days.  A headache like something burrowing into her skull had crippled her ability to function.  She was barely able to think past the pain and nausea.  Every few hours, she'd vomit a harsh, yellow stream of acid into the toilet until her body wracked itself in drive heaves.

Somehow—for some reason—she dragged herself downstairs for dinner, despite her having no appetite.  It wasn't hunger that got her up, but mom's faint call summoning them all to the table.  It stirred an impulse in her brain that she should have ignored, but she was on her feet and moving before her sickness and fatigue registered.

She almost slipped on the stairs.  It was a strange thing to remember so clearly.  But no memory of that night came without the vivid sight of her socked foot missing its step and bouncing down two stairs.  Her hand lurched out for the banister saving herself at the last second. The sudden movement brought a raw spasm that ran from her kidneys to her lungs.  A fresh wave of nausea clutched at her gut. 

Dad was home.  She didn't remember him getting home any more than she remembered sitting down at the table.

"How you doing, sweetie?"  He spoke softly and caressed her arm with his large hand, so big that most of the fingers stroked only the air around her thin limb.  His skin felt like ice against hers.  "Any better?"

"A little."

"She's faking," Donny said.

"Shut up."  Her throat betrayed her and there was no strength to the words.  They came out a weak whimper.  She resented not being able to put her little brother in his place.

"Leave your sister alone."  Mom was there with her hand on the top of Amy's head.  She petted her hair and then ran her palm across her forehead and the back of her hand against her cheek.  "You're a little warm.  Maybe you should stay in bed.  Go up and I'll bring you some food."

"No, mom.  I'm tired of being in bed."  It was a thin moan that hurt her own ears.

There was talking around her—nothing but a swirl of meaningless chatter—as she poked a piece of tortellini with her fork and dragged it around the small plate.

Amy lay on the loveseat with a blanket over her and her feet tucked in between the cushion and the armrest.  The TV droned out some sitcom.  Canned voices muttered and quipped, all the while a high-pitched buzzing rang like an alarm in the background.  It was a stomach-churning whine that didn't seem to bother the others. 

Amy looked away from the screen and the room swam around her.  Mom and Donny were on the couch.  Donny's face was crushed against his fist as he leaned on his side.  His eyes drooped and he smelled of sleep—a thick, warm, musty smell.

The show must have ended and mom looked at her and said, "I think you should go to bed.  Both of you."

"Aww.  I'm not tired." Donny protested weakly, as though he was obligated to put up a fight before bedtime, rather than any real urge to stay up.

"You have soccer tomorrow, buddy.  Get some rest."  Amy could hear her father's voice but his chair was empty.  Where had he gone?

In bed, mom checked in on her.  The door creaked open letting in a brutal glare of light from the hallway.  The light made grinding noise in her eyes.  When had light become the enemy?

"How're you feeling, sweetie."  The door closed and mom sat down on the bed beside her.  The warmth from her mother's body shimmered the air around her like an aura.  A sweet smell came off of her.  It was something like toasted coconut and it calmed Amy and gave her a sense of comfort.

She swallowed pills she was told would bring her fever down and then mom was gone too.  Lost from the room.  Lost from the world.

The next day, Amy woke up naked in the desert.  The headache was gone.  But she was all alone and miles from anything resembling home.  That morning was lost to a swirling confusion of panic, sand, sharp stones, and brutal heat.  She wandered in search of help, the sun blistering her tender skin.  By the time it was high in the sky, she had given up.  There was a shaded hollow she had crawled into and the dry earth held her tight.  She trembled and prayed someone would come to rescue her.  Night came, chilling her to the point where she was certain she would die out there all alone.  Then the next time she woke up, she was in a basement. 

She knew it was a basement because it smelled moist and earthy—cold and sunless.

Nothing made sense.  She was lying on her stomach on a gray concrete floor.  The walls were also concrete but painted dark green.  The yellow barred door of a jail cell lay next to her.  The twisted and torn metal of a hinge sat inches from her face.  It was stained from a pool of blood that glistened under the white lights.  The bulbs were dull and dusty.  They were held in wire cages as though someone worried they might escape and fly away.

Amy slowly glanced around.  A video camera stared at her.  It was propped up on its side by a small mound of gore on the floor.  The lens had a crack running down the middle and looked like a cat's eye.  Beyond that, there was a rib cage torn open and emptied out so the cracked bones stood up like the rib roast mom would sometimes make on Sunday. 

Burning sickness hit the back of Amy's throat.  She pulled her hand from underneath her body and covered her mouth, only to fling it away from her in horror, when she saw the thick, congealing blood coating her fingers. 

She was screaming when the door burst open.  A solid, steel-plated door at the top of a small staircase.  New terror added fuel to her shrieks, as a dozen masked men poured down the steps.  Feet clambering in rhythm—a jackbooted millipede in gray camo jumpsuits.  Black goggles hid their eyes.  A heavy mask with two tusk-like canisters covered their mouths.  In their hands, they held long, black rifles.  Each one projected a beam of red light into the darkness of the cellar.  Every laser was aimed directly at Amy and never wavered.

Her family was the last thing she wanted to talk about.  But every session Horus tried to drag it out of her.  He would keep it up until she was exhausted and felt like sleeping for the rest of the day.  Amy longed to put an end to it. 

Deep in that dark corner, Ylva's presence beat like a thin pulse.

Help me, Amy called out to it.

What do you want, child?

I want him to stop asking.  I want him to stop talking.

Energy coursed through the cell like a gust ahead of a storm,  and Ylva's words whispered in her ear, listen to me then.

"Can I talk about my grandmother?" Amy asked as the words were fed to her.

"You can talk about anything you like."

Amy smiled as the breeze made a comforting coo.  "When I was seven my granny Ylva came for a visit.  It was the only time she ever came to see us."  The voice retreated leaving her to continue on her own.  Amy tried to remember the photos of the woman, looking for something to build on.

"She wasn't from America and didn't travel much, so her coming was a big deal.  I remember when dad got back with her from the airport, she had gifts for Donny and me in her suitcase: hand-knitted sweaters."

"Go on."

Amy was getting better at reading the subtle clues in the old man's face.  Despite his eagerness for her to talk, he was bored.  It was really his lips that told the story.  They tried to hide in his beard but when he was genuinely interested, they flashed—moisture glistened as they quickly leaped to pronounce each syllable.  Now the movements were labored and the flesh dry and flat.

"We drove around and showed her all the sights.  Not that there's a lot near us but we went to Fun City and the Stonehenge they have at the university."

Amy drew from vague recollections of other families with visiting relatives, but she could feel herself running dry.  Both her parents were only children and they never had anyone visit them.  No grandparent had ever done anything with her.

Ylva bristled at the fine hairs on the exposed part of her arm.  Amy pulled down her hoodie's sleeve.  The touch drifted to her hand.  The woman seemed to be taking shape, leaning over her from behind the chair, clutching her hand and pressing her mouth to Amy's ear.

The wind began to speak again.

"Granny Ylva and I went for a walk one day.  Out in the reservoir where the mesquite trees grow.  She told me I was special."

"She sounds like a nice woman."  Horus showed her his teeth.  The smile made him look tired and old.  Amy could almost see him trudging across a plane trying to keep up with the rest of the herd.

"No," She spoke sharply responding to the sudden piercing word bouncing in her skull.  "No, she isn't nice."

"She isn't."  The look on Horus's face changed.  His yellow eyes were wide.  He wasn't bored anymore.

"No.  Not at all.  But that's okay because she's smart and strong.  And she likes me.  She taught me things."  Ylva's breathe felt like hot steam forming condensation on the lobe and in the shell of her ear.

"What was it she taught you?" 

Amy hadn't noticed herself move, but she was kneeling on the seat of the chair, raising herself up and leaning forward with her hands pressed on the dressing table.  Ylva's speech burrowed into her.  Her words merged with Amy's thoughts until they were one.  The darkness spread out around her like a glorious night.

"She taught me that there is strong and there is weak.  And that the weak run.  The weak hide behind walls and fences and thick glass."  She banged her hand fist against the window.  "And the strong...."  She teased out the words grinning like she was about to tell the best joke she had ever heard.  But she stayed silent staring into those weary, yellowed eyes in front of her.

"Amy, what do the strong do?" 

She could hear the dryness of his mouth.  It sent a thrill through her nerve endings.

"The strong eat the weak," she told him never breaking her gaze.