Reaper's Touch

Hex: Dark Night

"It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake."
-Frederick Douglass

Hex woke with a start, sure she had felt someone touch her neck. All that was left was the tingling spot on her flesh that told her she hadn't dreamed it. Someone had touched her neck. But no, that wasn't possible. There was no way. Surely it was just nerves. She could never sleep through the night in a new place, and this place was noisy as hell too.

There was the traffic outside, vehicles roaring and barking at each other even at this late hour, and she could see the lights flashing on the ceiling, making the shadows meld and move and change like the liquid in a lava lamp. The building was so old it hadn't been built with the modern city in mind, the walls too thin, the heater too weak, making her shiver.

The worn couch she was sleeping on wasn't the most comfortable either. Its old springs dug into her spine, and she endured the discomfort until it became pain. It was then that she arched her back to start the process of rolling over as quietly as she could. Once she was successful and sure the squeaky frame hadn't disturbed anyone, she let out the breath she'd been holding.

From here she could easily see into Ember's and West's "room." Little Cricket's crib was separated from the bed by a king sized white sheet hanging from the ceiling, affording the couple a semblance of privacy. All three of them slept soundly. Hex could see Cricket in his crib, one arm hanging through the bars. Ember and West were spooning.

The memories that weighed so much were sitting like moss-covered boulders in her brain, and Hex closed her eyes to see them clearly; the old abandoned office building with its ghost on the upper floors, the carpet that smelled like mildew and scratched her shoulder blades when she twisted herself out of the blankets in her sleep. And him. Him. Him. The warmth of his arm across her chest and the pressure of each burned fingertip against her neck, where she knew he could feel her pulse; steady, safe, familiar. He liked to put his fingers there while he slept.

Hex touched her throat and sat up on the couch. With every movement she paused to check on her sleeping roommates, a pause for each step to the door.

——————

The old, decrepit concrete bridge might as well have been a gravestone. That's all it was to her now. It was dull and dark in the night, forgotten by time and the changing city. Many nights they had slept here, mostly during the summers because the breeze would hit just right under it, and the bugs weren't as bad as they were in the parks, where the benches had iron rail dividers to keep the homeless from sleeping on them.

They would crawl up to the top part and lay their sleeping bags there, as far from the wet, rotten, insect-ridden bed of leaves at the bottom as they could get, knowing they would slide down in their sleep. The only unknown was how far down they'd end up by morning. She would open her eyes and find her arm stretched high above her head, still holding his hand, the sleeping bag twisted around her waist and bugs crawling on her sticky skin.

"Adam," she said softly.

The silence that followed was like being spit on.

"I hate you so goddamn much," she whispered."if you weren't dead I'd kill you. I would fucking kill you."

Why had she come here? What was the point? Even if he could hear her anguish, he couldn't respond or even acknowledge it, and that made her hate him even more.

Hex stepped onto the spongy pile of leaves. The stench of rot filled her nostrils. She wondered briefly if any of these leaves had been here on that night. Or did they blow in long after he was gone?