Already Dead

closer, shoves the toe of one of her Nikes under my ass and starts trying to shove me toward the door.

– Out. Get out

My gut ripples and I heave up a final dribble of bile that lands on her sneaker.

– Grossl So gross! Get out

She's kicking me now. The point of her toe hitting the side of my stomach is a new agony. I reach out to block her foot and the picture falls from my hand and cartwheels to the floor. She looks down at it, at the blood- smeared image of herself. I hold a hand up.

– Aughm! Amandahungh.

She bolts for the door. I grab the cuff of her jeans. She stops, lifts her other foot and steps on my arm.

– Let go!

I keep my grip and she tries to rip her leg free and trips herself onto the floor.

– I'm gonna scream! I'm gonna!

She starts screaming and reaches down, clawing at my hand, trying to pry my fingers loose from her jeans. I grab her wrist.

SNAP!

She stops screaming and stares at the cuff I have ratcheted onto her, chaining her right wrist to my left.

– That is so wrong.

– Take it off.

– I don't have the key.

– Gaaaud. So lame.

We're sitting next to each other, our backs against the wall. The cramps haven't hit me for five minutes and I'm starting to hope I might be in the lull.

– Let me see that.

She reaches for the photograph still lying on the floor.

– Don't touch it.

Her hand stops.

– Why not? It's of me.

– The blood, don't get it on you.

– Whatever.

She picks it up by the edges. It doesn't matter, really. The Vyrus can't survive outside a host. But it bothers me, seeing her fingers graze the blood, knowing what was recently living in it.

– I can't believe they gave you this.

She drops it on the floor.

– How'd you find me? You talk to that Dobbs creep?

– Sort of.

– Talk about lame. That guy doesn't have a clue.

– No, he doesn't.

– Doesn't matter. I'm not going back.

I rattle the cuffs.

– Yeah, you are.

She rolls her head to the side and looks at me.

– You ever try dragging a screaming teenage girl down the street?

I remember a night over twenty years ago: a young girl screaming, a hunger I didn't know how to control. But it doesn't matter. The past is a dead thing. I can't change it.

– You ever been knocked out and hauled around in a sack?

– No way. My dad would freak and you would never get paid.

– Not taking you to your dad.

She bugs her eyes at me.

– Oh, no

She laughs.

– Her? She sent you?

She picks up the picture.

– Of course she gave you this one. She knows I hate it.

She tears it in half and drops the pieces to the floor.

– Bitch. So what's she want? There a junior deb ball I'm supposed to go to or something?

I pick up the pieces of the picture and put them in my jacket pocket.

– She doesn't want you to end up like Whitney Vale.

She starts to say something else, closes her mouth instead. She looks at her shoes, rubbing the toe of one against the bile stain on the other.

– Whitney got what she deserved.

Whitney Vale, eighteen, jamming a knife into the back of a kid's skull; her body being eaten by a germ.

– For what?

– I don't know. Maybe for fucking my dad'?

– Like I said, your mom doesn't want you to end up like Whitney.

– Oh. My. God. She told you that? She is such a freak. I know what she says about him. But my dad has never touched me. The only reason he fucked Whitney is 'cause she was all over him. So gross. The only guy who ever touched me was one of mom's creepy boyfriends. So what's she want to do, kidnap me to protect me from my dad? She is so lame.

She stands up.

– Let's go.

– Huh?

– Take me home.

I look at my watch, it's just after sunrise. She yanks on the cuffs.

– You got me, toughguy, now take me in.

– We can't go yet.

– Look, I'm not going to spaz or anything. I mean, the sooner you take me back there, the sooner I can run away again. So let's just get it over with.

– We have to wait.

– For what?

– For the sun to go down.

– Why?

– Because I'm allergic to it.

She stares at me.

– You are such a loser.

– Because. It's hard to pee when you're handcuffed to some ass-hole and you're both just waiting for the pee.

The door is swung open. I'm squatting on one side of it with my arm stretched out, and she's on the other side. Our hands grip the edge of the door, mine just slightly above hers.

– So say something.

– For a girl who has some experience living in squats, you're awfully pee shy.

– Fuck you.

I chew on my split lower lip, sucking at one of the cuts, trying to ease the prickles inside me with the dull copper taste of my own blood. It doesn't help. All it does is whet my appetite, as if I need it whetted. I stop sucking.

Blood still fills my veins and pumps through my heart and carries oxygen to my brain, but as far as the Vyrus is