She could not bring herself to leave.
She was too afraid. Too afraid to walk out her own doorway. Her mouth went dry and scratchy with unshed tears and her joints seized up every time she tried. Once she’d made it as far as the door, but could not bring herself to open it.
After a moment of staring herself down, she turned away from the table and started to march toward the door. She made it three paces before she collapsed onto the linoleum floor and began to cry.
Xander opened his front door and stuck his head out, taking a long whiff of the fresh morning air and smiling from ear to ear.
“You look happy,” Mike said sardonically, stepping up behind him and admiring the eastern sun for a moment himself.
“Understatement,” Xander replied, waving a finger at his friend without even turning around. “I don’t even feel tired anymore. I think I got a second wind or something, but I feel like I got a full night’s sleep last night.”
“Sometimes I hate you,” Mike snarled, pressing his palm against one of his throbbing, bloodshot eyes.
“Sometimes I hate your Mom, but then we make up and that’s my favourite part.”
“What?”
“Nuthin’.”
“Seriously, what’d you just say about my Mom?”
Xander turned to look at him, rolling his eyes. “Oh, like you’ve never heard a joke about your Mom befo- -” he stopped, his mouth remaining locked in the circular position it had been in to make the ‘o’ sound but with no sound coming out. His gaze had shifted past Mike and back into the shadowed hallway of the house, his pupils shrinking to the size of pins as he did.
Mike turned back, one eyebrow cocked in the air and he followed his friend’s line of sight.
Cathy stood in the doorway, her hair still a ragged and tangled mess atop her head. The T-shirt she was wearing was slumped loosely to one side, exposing her freckled, pale shoulder. There were bags under her eyes, bloodshot with tears that she was trying with all her might to hold back. Cradled carefully in her hands was a dull grey .38 caliber revolver. “Xander, what’s this?” she asked softly, her voice staggering on each syllable.
Xander closed his mouth promptly, then opened it again to respond. When no words came out, he tore his gaze away from her, looking at some random spot on his lawn.
Mike turned back to Xander, his eyes narrow and hard. “What’s the gun for, man?” he said, his voice firm and even, with the sour tint of anger on only the last word.
Xander turned back toward them, his gaze shifting from one to the other, and then finally looked back at the grass.
“Oh my god!” Cathy yelled, so loud and so angry that her voice shrieked to the highest pitch he’d ever heard. She took both of her hands out from under the gun, dropping it to the lawn as though it were something dirty. Mike turned toward her, moving to place his arm around her, but she twisted away. Her face seemed to be at war with itself, the top half bubbling over with tears and the bottom half curled into a rueful snarl. She took two slow, deliberate steps to close the distance between herself and Xander, burning her glare into his head the entire time. When she was close enough to him, she waited.
After a moment, he looked up to meet her gaze.
Her lip curled, she slapped him across the face.
He winced, but still did not say a word.
“Fucker!” she screamed, pushing on his shoulders until he fell to the ground and then hitting him again. Then again. Her hands ached, but she kept pounding at him with her small fists until Mike finally stepped up beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “How could you?” she screamed, her face as red as he’d ever seen it now.
He still didn’t speak, staring up at her from his seat on the dew-laden grass. The moisture soaked into his pants and made him uncomfortable, but he didn’t so much as shift.
“How could you?” Mike asked, his voice still calm if nothing else as Cathy turned and finally rested her head on his shoulder. “How could you even think it?”
Xander’s mouth opened and closed again, the suckle of the dry skin of his lips sticking together palatable in the quiet of the early morning hours. When he finally spoke, his voice was parched and pleading. “I was confused.”
“Bull shit,” Mike snapped, almost stepping forward and then restrained himself. “When?”
Xander stared blankly for a second, as Cathy pulled herself up off of Mike’s shoulder.
“When?” Mike repeated, his voice growing forceful.
“Right before the murders started again,” he replied finally, his voice almost a whisper. “And I swear to fuck, I almost wish I had because then none of this would be happening right now.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Cathy said, shaking her head from side to side. “Don’t even think like that. What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” Xander spat, finally scrambling to his feet, his hands gesturing wildly. “What’s wrong with me? Nothing, Cathy... just fucking nothing. I have no control over anything in my life. I never have, really, only I’m just now realizing it.”
“What’re you talking about?” Mike asked, brow furrowed and taking a step forward.
“I can’t control this thing inside me. I can’t control it. Its almost killed Cathy three fucking times now. I couldn’t control what happened to Sara, and now she’s gone. I can’t control this shit that’s going on with Genblade, with my parents, with those idiots at school, any of it!” He stopped, pausing a moment and then looking down again. “So I decided to take some control.”
“By
