Page 111 of Wrong Mail

Chapter Forty

Icome back in pieces.

The storm reaches me first. Rain is hammering the roof, far away and then right over me, like the house is being torn open. Pain comes next, a white line down the side of my head, so wide I can't find the edges of it. Then I taste copper in my mouth and smell something burnt underneath it. A hand touches my face and turns me gently toward a voice.

"Mallory. Hey. Open your eyes."

I open them. The study is dark and tilting. A flashlight is propped on the desk somewhere above me, throwing its light up onto the ceiling. In the edge of it, Henry's face hangs close over mine. His hair is wet, and blood runs from his temple down into his collar. He has a wet folded cloth pressed to the side of my head. He lifts it to look, and it comes away dark with blood.

"There you are," he says, very soft. "Don't move fast. You hit your head, hard."

None of it makes sense. I don't know why Henry is in my house, in the dark, holding my head together with his hand. The last thing I remember is the desk coming up at me. Before that, the gun. Before that, David.

I turn my head, which is a mistake. The pain rolls through me, sudden and sickening, and I see him.

He is on the floor by the desk, on his back, one arm thrown wide, his face turned a little away. There is a darkness spread out under him that the light doesn't reach into. I watch his chest for the lift of a breath. It doesn't come.

"David." It comes out barely louder than breath. "David."

"Mallory." Henry's hand closes on my shoulder. "Look at me. Not at him. At me."

But I’m already going to David, dragging myself over the boards, and Henry doesn't stop me. He comes with me, a hand under my arm, taking my weight when my arms fold. I reach him. I put my palm on his chest. He’s still warm. Nothing moves under my hand. There is a hole in his shirt, high on the left, and blood is coming out of it slowly. I understand but I refuse to accept it in the same breath.

“No,” I say.

"He's gone," Henry says behind me. "I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do."

Tears roll down my face.

I turn on him. "What did you do?"

He doesn't flinch. He lets me look at him. He’s kneeling in David's blood, his coat soaked through from the rain. There’s a gash at his temple and blood on his hands.

"He was going to kill you," Henry says. "He had the gun and you were down, and he wasn't going to stop."

"Why are you here?”

His eyes move to David, then back to me. "Because I was worried about you."

The words land softer than they should.

"Since Julia disappeared," he says, "I've been watching him. I didn't want to say anything without proof. But I saw enough to know he wasn't telling you the truth. I saw him come back here tonight, and I knew something was wrong."

His voice stays level, but only just. I can hear the strain at the edges.

"I came in through the back. You were down. He had the gun in his hands, and it was pointed toward you. I said his name. He swung around on me, and I went for it. I got it away from him, but he kept coming, Mallory. He kept coming. I fired because I thought he was going to kill us. I didn't have another choice."

Henry sighs, running a hand over his head.

He looks at David, closes his eyes, then opens them.

"Julia." It comes up through the fog all at once, Julia on the cold floor of the wing. I try to stand but can't. "Julia's in the renovation area, she's⁠—"

"I know. I found her." Henry is already nodding, already ahead of me. "We're going to get help for her."

A knot in me loosens at that. I hate that it loosens, and I let it anyway, because I need it to be true more than I need anything.

Then the other thing surfaces, the thing David said again and again in the dark hall.