Death of a Nightingale

CHAPTER 20: THE THING ABOUT FEAR

Ness doubles over and I watch her trying to inhale air. But my vision is focused in on her in the wrong way.

I grip the rusted door frame.

"Breathe." I rasp lowly. All I can do.

I don't feel my strength anymore. In this state of mind, I never do. The door frame crumbles into my fingers. Speckles of rusted metal flake to the ground like fiery snow. My feet follow her out. I see only her.

"You're going to have to calm your breathing before the adrenaline in your blood makes you smell like...prey."

She takes in another gulp of air. Yapping. I smell it filling her lungs. Smell her blood in her veins. I squeeze my eyes shut as hard as I can.

"I can smell -"

She interrupts me. Brave human. Facing me. Still heaving.

"Currently all you're gonna smell...is my asthma acting up."

My blur refocuses.

She manages an inhale. Good.

My vision comes back.

Another step back. Another breath. Slowly.

My hand lets go off the crunched lock I ripped right out of the door. It clinks to the ground.

Ness looks at me. Not afraid. Just herself.

"You really kill people."

Not a question. I nod. Giving her nothing but truth.

"It's not a choice. I've gone days without it. Then it overcomes me and I kill without a thought."

I point at the train car.

"If I manage it, schedule it, I can pick someone sick or old."

She nods. "Someone you think 'deserves to die'".

"No. Just someone much closer to death to begin with."

Her asthma really must have gotten the best of her. She falters and sits down on the cold, hard floor.

At least she doesn't run. That would have sealed her fate. I wouldn't have had the time or the strength to control my instincts. She would have been dead within seconds.

I sit next to her. Giving her space enough to recoil if she needs to. But she doesn't. She's still trying to calm herself.

"When I was little my father used to tell me this poem to help me calm down. It's a scary old ghost story, so it never worked. But it stuck."

She doesn't turn to look at me but inclines her head for me to continue.

"Last night upon the stair -"

"Oh, I think I know that one." She interrupts me with her hand on my arm. I feel her warm skin bleed its heat through my thin layer of clothing. Alive.

"I saw a girl who wasn't there.

She wasn't there again today.

Oh, how I wish she'd go away."

I can't help the smile that blooms on my own face. She knows my little poem. Odd and wonderful. And she changed it too. In her version it's a girl.

"Do you know the second verse?" I ask her.

Her head spins to me. All fear forgotten. Replaced by curiosity.

"Second verse?"

"She loves a songbird, pure and fair.

A nightingale, a song of air.

Of innocence, of life and yearning.

A bird of love, but dead, come morning."

Her heartbeat slows as the words sink in. A low chuckle.

"You made that part up."

I don't have to answer. It is again not a question. My nightingale knows me quite well.

She studies my face and her delicate fingers play with the fabric of my sleeve.

"You're going to kill me."

Ah, that. I take her hand and interlace our fingers as I lay down flat next to her. Staring at the ceiling of this forgotten, urban cave.

"Not if you kill me first. You'd be doing the world a favor."

I don't see the tear sprouting and running down her soft cheek, but I smell the salt. Her head bumps into mine. A comfort. A solace.

"How?" She asks.