Chapter 4

Vivian and the man who smelled like rusted blades were fighting.

I was in the storage room, listening to things crash outside—plates, bowls, cups, shattering one after another like firecrackers on New Year's. I could hear Vivian crying too. Her crying didn't sound like mine, all locked up in my throat. Hers was sharp, like a knife scraping glass, and it made the hair on my arms stand up.

After a long, long time, it finally went quiet outside.

I eased the door open a crack. Vivian sat alone on the floor, surrounded by broken porcelain. A long gash ran across the back of her hand, bleeding steadily—drops of red hitting the floor, one after another, like the little flower-petal clots my mother used to cough up. The rain smell coming off her had turned thick and heavy.

I thought of my mother. She'd told me that if you were bleeding, you had to hurry and put on one of the magic bandages that blew the pain away. I ran back to my corner and dug through the little tin box my mother had left me until I found a magic bandage—my last one. It had a cute little bear printed on it.

I peeled the backing off, the way I'd seen my mother do, and crept over to Vivian. I crouched down, wanting to press the bear onto her cut. The second my hand touched her, she flinched like she'd been shocked.

"Get away from me!"

She knocked my hand aside like it had burned her. The bandage went flying and landed in the middle of the broken porcelain, the cute little bear's face smeared with dirt. That stung a little. It was my last one. Once it was ruined, there wouldn't be another.

Vivian didn't move again after she snapped at me. She stared at the dirty bear-shaped bandage on the floor, frozen. Her eyes weren't like ice anymore, and they weren't like blades either. There was something in them I couldn't understand—something like a fog that wouldn't clear.

That was when the door banged open again.

It was him. He'd come back, reeking of alcohol worse than he ever smelled of blades. He saw the blood on Vivian's hand, then saw me on the floor, and he smiled.

"What, you think this idiot's going to save you?"

Vivian ignored him. She got slowly to her feet and stepped in front of me.

His smile vanished. He crossed the room, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and slammed her against the wall.

"You're still protecting him? He's a bastard! A dead weight! Vivian, I'm telling you, this idiot is nothing but bad luck. He'll drag you down with him sooner or later."

Vivian said nothing, just bit down on her lip.

That seemed to make him angrier. He let go of her and scanned the room, his eyes finally landing on the knife rack in the kitchen. They lit up—hungry, the way a starved wolf's would. He walked toward the kitchen, muttering under his breath.

"I've been telling you—trouble like this, you deal with it once and for all." He licked his cracked lips and picked up the longest, sharpest knife on the rack. "I've got a way to shut both of you up. Permanently."