Page 93 of She’s a Doll

“Lucy May McQuinn died years ago,” he snarled. “No one cares about her anymore. No one but you.”

You killed me, I tried to say, but the words stayed silent, trapped in my mind. I’d dropped my phone, lost focus. You killed⁠—

He threw me down into the ground. Hard. Hard enough that I felt one of my limbs bend and another break. Hard enough that the back of my porcelain skull crunched as it hit the dirt beneath me. Hard enough that, for a single, shocking moment, I thought he’d killed me again.

I lay there, muddy, stunned, limbs shaking with fear, with shock, with grief rising, raging through me, as violent as it had been when I’d first detached from my body, limbs numb, throat a knot of agony. He’d pushed me down, held me down, crushed the life out of me. And now he was going to do it again. He’d turned on me so quickly, so easily. Just like last time. I should’ve known. I should’ve been ready.

He lifted his foot to stomp down on me, crush me.

I screamed, harsh, angry. The time stream pushed at me, rough and choppy and mean. I wrestled it down, frantically, desperately, smashing myself into the current, begging it to hold.

Kyle slowed, then stopped, frozen, like a statue.

I scrambled away from him, bits of broken porcelain trailing behind me, my legs squeaking and wobbling with each step.

Hopelessness throttled me, choked me, pressed me down, my throat collapsing, my lungs burning, my fingernails clumped with blood and skin. Except I didn’t have fingernails. I didn’t have lungs either. I was already gone, already dead, clinging to a flimsy, fragile old toy because I was too scared of letting go, too scared of what lay beyond, too angry, too sad, too pathetic to just accept what had happened.

I collapsed several meters away from him, clutching my metal limbs, as if that would make the storm throttling me any kinder, as if that would hold me together when everything felt like it was falling apart.

He’d killed me.

He’d killed me and he didn’t even care.

I knew that. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. But somehow, hearing it in his voice, seeing the twist of his face, feeling the squeeze of his fingers, made it real all over again. He’d done this to me. He’d done all of it. And he didn’t care. Not enough to come forward. Not enough to admit it, even here, even now, in this dark, empty place.

I was shaking so hard I could barely see, my eye burning, the glue ringing my throat tight, painfully tight, and getting tighter. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. But all I could do was hold myself together and weather it, endure it. Pain. Fear. Grief. Rage.

I looked back at him, balanced on one foot, face twisted and hands balled into fists.

I should’ve left him. I could’ve. It would’ve been easy. The time stream was holding slow and stable. If I’d left, I could’ve made it back to Nicola’s apartment, climbed back through the cat flap, and collapsed somewhere familiar, somewhere safe, all before he took his next breath. That was what Nicola would’ve told me to do, if she were here. But she wasn’t . . . and I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t just walk away from this, from him. I couldn’t let him get away. Not again. Not after everything he’d done.

I had to see this through. I had to make him understand. I had to at least hurt him, even if I couldn’t hurt him the way he’d hurt me, even if I couldn’t make it right. I couldn’t walk away.

I guess I’m just dramatic like that.

I released the time stream.

Kyle’s foot thudded down on an empty patch of dirt. He stared down for a moment, then looked around, breathing hard. When he saw me, several meters away, watching him, he staggered back with a choked shout.

I didn’t give him time to get used to the idea.

I brought time to a standstill again and dragged myself back toward him.

This time, when time snapped back into motion and he saw me, a few inches from him, he screamed.

His next kick was easy to dodge. I froze him, shuffled half a meter to the left, and then let his foot fly, missing me. He screamed again, eyes wide and white in the moonlight.

“You did this,” I said again, pushing the words out into the world, forcing them to exist. My voice sounded from his dropped phone, closer and clearer than before. “You did it. You! You! You!”

He scrambled backward, splashing through a puddle, almost tripping over his abandoned blazer, desperate to get away.

I followed, close, closer. “You killed me, Kyle Lawson! You killed me!”

“I didn’t!”

“You. Killed. Me!”

“I didn’t! I didn’t! I⁠—”