I was spent, beyond that. I almost called Mark to cancel unless he was determined to see me. Anyway, I just wanted to get it over with before I had to deal with my sister. I didn’t dare suggest he come to the loft, since I knew she might show at any moment, bore into me like a dentist’s drill on an exposed nerve. It was 8 p.m., and I’d agreed to meet Mark at Fanelli’s at 10:30. I brushed my teeth, rinsing the acidic taste of vomit from my mouth. I was running off what little fat I had. I showered and threw on a stretchy, ankle-length, black dress. My face looked deathly, dark-circled eyes floating in an ashen pallor. I fixed it as best I could before I pulled on flat-heeled boots, grabbed my keys, and jammed them in my jacket pocket. I slid a sheathed blade inside my left boot. It went with me everywhere, even on short trips.

On the way to meet Mark, I imagined life without Khalika. I could not. She and Mercutio were all that kept me together, and I knew that Mark was lost to me. All this I knew somewhere beyond my bones. Even Mark couldn’t keep me fastened to this desolate landscape without them. Khalika killed Dick and Bianca. She did it to save me. For whatever else she did, I forgave her.

“We are put here to do the work,” she said, and that one day I would know that. It looked like that day was upon me, and I didn’t know if I would survive it. I knew only one thing for certain: I couldn’t allow Khalika to hurt Mark. I couldn’t live, wouldn’t want to. She had suffered with me, evolved with me into whatever we had both become. We’d struggled from the start to make sense of a world that mostly made none.

“You can spend your whole fifteen minutes in the light trying,” claimed Khalika. “God’s—His—handbook made you realize why everything is so hopelessly fucked. It’s because everybody has to sacrifice somebody, eat somebody—eat everything that breathes.”

And women always seem to be left holding the bag. The bloody fucking bag, with all the tools conceived and implemented by man himself. If you’re left holding it anyway, you might as well make use good use of it. “Be hung for a sheep as a lamb…”

I rounded the corner and spotted Mark’s car pulling into a space across the street. I watched him alight with the offhanded grace of a dancer. He noticed me immediately and for a moment we both paused and stared at each other over a distance that suddenly seemed unbreachable. Mark smiled at me, crossed over and waited. When I reached him, my weakness and disorientation were such that I almost fell into his arms. Mark reached under my chin and tilted my head up, so my eyes met his.

“Jesus, baby, you look like you’ve taken a beating. Tell me who it was and I’ll fuck ’em up.”

He held both fists up, rose up on his toes, and did a few joke jabs. I couldn’t even fake a smile.

“I don’t know where to start, Mark, so if you don’t mind, I won’t. Not yet. Just bring me up to speed.”

“OK, but I don’t think what I have to tell you is going to make you feel better.”

“I don’t care—I already know too much, and I don’t think there’s anything that would shock me now.”

Mark looked at me quizzically. “Has something gone down since we last spoke?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t really sorted it out in my head yet, not in any way that makes sense.”

“OK, baby, take your time. I’d rather be in front of the fireplace with you, but I’ll settle for looking at you across a sticky table. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you, don’t you?”

Mark tilted my chin up farther and kissed me. Then he held me to him for a full minute before he released me. I felt as brittle as a dried butterfly pinned under glass. Once inside the bar, my eyes had to adjust to the darkness and Mark guided me to a table in the corner, ordered drinks.

“Seriously, Violet, and I think you should order something to eat—even if it’s a grilled cheese.”

I told him I’d already eaten but neglected to say that I’d thrown it all up.

“OK, I’ll get right to it.”

I heard the words, but I had trouble focusing on what they meant.

“You’re too smart to have this fed to you in small bites. What’s important is locating your sister, but it looks like we might have a problem with that.”

“Besides the fact that she has no known address and is as slippery as snot on a doorknob?”

My voice was so low I could hardly hear myself over the jukebox. It was Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.” I suddenly had the ridiculous urge to get up and slow dance with Mark, re-enact a scene from some old noir movie where the bad girl performs her hoodoo on the poor, deluded hero, pulls him into her web of lies and deceit before she dances him to death. But this time, I wanted to change the script—have them finish their dance and walk off together, hand in hand, into the chill, misty evening, me staring up at him in wonder.

“You’re telling me you have no way to get in touch with her?”

I stared at the bottles over the bar, then into Mark’s eyes. They were deep forest green in the dim light. Even before he went in for the kill, I felt my heart break. Whatever he knew, I knew there would be more to come, and soon.

“No, I never could. It’s always been that way.”