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Now was the time to run, except my feet didn’t move. I told myself it was because I needed him, or at least, I needed his sperm.
So I stayed, staring out the window at the building across the street. The sign was lit up but with a crack in the plastic and most of the letters dulled—HOSPinstead ofHOSPITALITY SUPPLIES.
HOSP, the more I stared at it, the more it nagged at me.
The Fairfield place in the photo...Fairfield Hospital? If there weren’t one, I’d be surprised. There was a hospital mentioned in a letter from the SK, but nothing specific. Still...
The connection justwas.
My serial killer. It lit up like a lightning blast. A plus B equals C.
Crazy sauce.
I got it, but I had the Cucitrice’s memories, and lodged in there somewhere was a precedent for such strangely disconnected facts correlating—the eyeglasses was in play.
“That’s it! Someone’s using the eyeglasses.” They were helping me. Or watching me. I shivered.
“The what?” Val walked in as the door swung open.
“The eyeglasses.”
He nodded, not really engaging as he shucked his shoes and shed his clothes and walked into the bathroom. The water turned on.
I went over to his jacket and searched through pockets for the keys to the cuffs. The small teddy bear bumped against my hand, and maybe it was the light, or how tired Val had looked when he’d walked in, but somehow the bear looked more worn.
More fragile.
“Val?” I let the unlocked cuffs fall to the floor. “Val?”
I stood in the doorway watching him. Wet hair plastered against his face, eyes closed he let the shower of water run over him.
I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but I wasn’t ready to soften.
“I have to go to Fairfield.”
He didn’t answer.
“Val, did you hear me? I have to go to Fairfield.”
His eyes opened, lashes blinking the water away. He looked sad and ruined and beautiful. “Why?”
“The eyeglasses...they kind of told me.”
He opened his mouth as if to argue but then hesitated. “I think I need to see a priest.”
“A what?”
He sucked in a breath. “I’m contaminated. I don’t...I don’t know how to fight this thing. I want to try an exorcism.”
“By a priest?”
“By anyone who seems competent.”
As if we could tell who was good at that.
“We’ll end up with a charlatan.”
His eyes were pained and clear as he looked at me. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”
