“NO, NO, no!” Mary says. “Wake up! Wake up!”
Mary releases the grip on my hair and leans forward, her breath hot on my face, shouting at me. “You don’t get to die yet! You don’t get off that—”
With everything I have left, I jerk my head upright, my forehead connecting solidly with the splint covering Mary’s broken nose.
Mary howls in pain from the head-butt, a wounded, tortured monster, her hands immediately pitching a tent over her nose. She falls backward and off me. I take a delicious, full breath of air and lift myself up, blood pouring into my eyes and out of my rib cage, the room moving sideways.
The scalpel, wet with my blood, resting on the floor. I reach for it, missing at first, seeing double, but finally getting hold of it while Mary writhes in pain on the floor, having broken her nose for the second time in a week, this time not of her own doing.
I try to get to my feet but fail, my right ankle shattered, my body so weak I can’t support myself. The lights are flashing in and out again like a strobe light, Mary closer to me each time they click on, the splint on her nose now gone, her face a bloody purple mash with a gruesome snarl and a hideous squeal—
I’m coming, Marta.
The strobe lights flickering, a gong echoing between my ears, Marta and I on prom night with our dates, hers the football captain, mine a sophomore buddy from math club three inches shorter than me, the day I identified Marta at the morgue, the time we stole one of mom’s cigarettes when we were ten, the night Books got down on one knee and showed me his grandmother’s diamond ring—
The stabbing pain in my ribs, Mary’s contorted grimace, snarling at me—
And then for a moment, everything is still, and Mary and I lock eyes, and she lets out a deep cry and rushes toward me. But I lunge toward her, too, pushing off with my good foot. The crown of my forehead crashes into Mary’s face. She cries out as she falls backward, as I fall on top of her, as I slap my left hand down on her chest and hold her down with my body weight.
Mary flails with her arms, reaching for my face, going for the scalpel in my hand.
My balance begins to wobble, my strength fading. This is it. My last chance.
My right hand strikes downward, the scalpel sinking into flesh and bone, then again, then again, thump, thump, thump, blood spattering my face, until Mary’s screams go silent.
And then everything is dark and warm.