Page 2 of What We Burn

The knife bites through the rope in three strokes and she drops, a dead weight in my arms. We both hit the ground, Sage caught against my chest. She’s not breathing.

She’s not breathing.

I lay her flat on the mulch. Tilt her head back. Her neck is a horror. The rope bit a groove into her skin and left it raw and weeping. The circle is already bruising black.

I claw the noose loose, work it over her head, and my fingers come away slick with blood.

Fuck!

“Sage! Little savage, look at me. Open your eyes. Please, baby, open your eyes!”

Nothing.

I pinch her nose and breathe into her mouth. Once. Twice. Her chest rises and falls with my air, not hers. I start compressions—the heel of my hand thrusting against her sternum, counting, pushing, the mechanical rhythm I learned for school, never thinking I’d use it on the woman I⁠—

Don’t think about that. Count!

One, two, three, four⁠—

“Come on!”

—five, six, seven, eight⁠—

“MICAH!”

I scream it so loud my throat tears. Sound carries at night on these streets, bouncing off stucco and asphalt. I scream his name again because if there is a God, Micah is close enough to hear me.

“MICAH! HELP! HELP ME!”

I keep pushing. Keep counting. Her lips are blue, her eyes half-open and seeing nothing.

“Come on, baby! Please.”

I breathe into her again. Nothing.

Come on. Come on.

“SAGE!”

I slam my fist against her sternum. Once. Hard. Every first-aid instructor I’ve ever had would flinch.

She gasps.

A shredding, tearing sound—like someone ripping canvas—and then she’s coughing, choking, her body convulsing as her lungs remember what they’re for. She rolls onto her side, and I catch her before she face-plants into the mulch. She’s retching, gagging, sucking air through a throat that sounds like it’s full of broken glass.

“That’s it. Breathe. You’re okay. You’re breathing. Keep breathing, little savage. That’s it.”

She can’t talk. Her eyes are wild—rolling, unfocused—and her hands are shaking so hard they might as well not be attached to her body. She grabs my shirt, my arm, whatever she can reach, and holds on with a grip that’ll leave bruises.

I pull her into my lap, wrapping both arms around her. I press my mouth against the top of her head and hold on. There’s nothing else I can do. She’s shaking so hard my body rocks with it.

“It’s okay,” I tell her, over and over, my voice barely working. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

She shakes her head, the tiniest movement, but it’s a start. The bloodied ruin of her fingernails digs into my forearms. Her airway is a mess. Wet, wheezing sounds, each breath an audition for which one will fail. I cradle her and look around frantically, trying to find where I dropped my phone.

“Micah!” I call out again.

“Eli!”