Page 81 of So Thirsty

I’m about to turn around when I see another car pull in, pull over to the pump next to ours. I watch Naomi perk up as a woman gets out of the other car. She could be about our age. She wears a purple knit hat, a matching peacoat. No scarf. Her neck is exposed.

“Hey, uh, what’d ya need?” There’s a guy behind the register. A twentysomething who reminds me of Matthew in how he barely looks at me.

“Um…” I say, distracted by what’s happening outside. By the woman who has started to pump her gas. Who looks over her shoulder to find herself being watched by two wide, wild eyes.

She turns back toward the pump with a puzzled look on her face.

Does she know she’s in danger? Can she sense it?

“Ma’am?”

“Sorry,” I say, fumbling with my wallet. “I need, um, fifty dollars of gas on pump one.”

He grunts as I get out two twenties, as I search for a ten. I don’t have time for this.

“I guess forty,” I say, anxiously looking through the window, my view obstructed by a sign advertising two Monster Energy drinks for the price of one. “Just forty dollars.”

He grunts again as I shove the bills across the counter. I step back so I can get a better look at what’s going on outside.

Naomi’s got her window rolled down, her elbow hanging out. She’s talking to the woman, whose back is now to me, so I can’t see her expression. Naomi’s smiling, but it’s not a genuine smile. It’s too big. Too toothy.

The woman begins walking toward her.

“Do you want a receipt?”

Panic has me glued in place. Whatever code-red urgency had me springing into action two nights ago, wielding a fire iron, it’s failing me now. I need to run out there, but nothing’s working. Not my legs. Not my lungs. Not my hands.

“Ma’am?”

Take a step. Grab the door handle. Run. Do something.

The woman stops, but Naomi beckons her forward. I don’t know what she’s saying to draw this woman in, but it’s working. It’s working.

It worked.

Naomi grabs the woman by the back of the head. It happens fast. From here, Naomi’s hand looks strangely nasty—like a scorpion clenched on the woman’s skull. The woman goes limp, and since her head is in front of Naomi’s, I have no idea what’s happening.

Well. I have some idea. An awful, devastating idea.

I hear a chime and turn around to find the clerk walking into a back room, staring down at his phone, unaware of the attack happening on the other side of the glass, and I’ve never felt luckier or more grateful to be ignored.

But then the woman screams. A bloodcurdling, night-shattering scream. The clerk pivots, and he looks at me, and I look at him, and his eyes narrow. His gaze shifts out through the window, out to the pumps.

“Holy shit!” he says.

He raises his phone, and I expect him to dial 9-1-1, but he doesn’t. He opens his camera. He’s taking a video. He’s filming.

I don’t make the decision. It just happens. Next thing I know, I’m snatching the phone out of his hands, pushing him hard into the wall.

“You didn’t see anything,” I say, in a voice much more menacing than my own. “And if you say anything, we’ll come back for you. We’ll drink your insides until you’re nothing but bones and skin.”

I slam his phone onto the floor and stomp on it until it breaks apart, and then I walk calmly away, noticing the security camera in the corner.

Whatever hope I might’ve held for avoiding further violence is now gone. Any and all hope I had is gone, forever silenced by this woman’s screaming.

Naomi must have lost her grip. The woman is now thrashing around on the pavement, holding her face, blood pouring through her fingers. Naomi bit her face.

She bit her face.