Angels Fall

fingersnap, and the lite was just gone. One of them must have kicked the door, because it shut. Everything was black. Ginny was just on the other side of the door, and there was nothing I could do for her. For any of them. I couldn't get out. I was in my coffin, buried alive, and we were all dead. That's what I thought."
    "The police found me. And I lived."
    "How long were you in the hospital'"
    "Six weeks, but I don't remember the first two it all, and only patches of the next. But I didn't handle it wry well."
    "Handle what very well?"
    "The incident, surviving it, being a victim."
    "What would be the definition of handling well being shot, left for dead and seeing a friend killed?"
    "Responding to therapy, accepting there was nothing I could have done to avoid or prevent any of it, eventually being grateful to have been spared. Finding Jesus or throwing myself into life's pleasures until I wrung them dry." she said impatiently. "I don't know. But I couldn't cope with it, or didn't cope with it. Flashbacks and night terrors. Sleepwalking, bouts of hysteria, then bouts of lethargy. I'd think I'd hear them coming for me, see that gray sweatshirt on strangers on the street. I had a breakdown, hence the psych ward."
    "They put you in Psych?"
    "I checked myself into a pyschiatric hospital when I realized I wasn't getting better. I couldn't work, I couldn't eat. I couldn't anything." She rubbed her temple. "But I had to leave because I realized how easy it would be to stay in that controlled environment. I had to stop taking the pills because with them I pretty much stayed blank, and I'd been blank for large chunks of time too long already."
    "So now you're just neurotic and anal."
    "That would be about right. Claustrophobic, obsessive/compulsive, with some occasional paranoia and frequent panic attacks. Crappy dreams, and I do sometimes wake up thinking it's all happening again. or could happen again. But I saw those two people. I didn't project. I didn't imagine. I saw them."
    "Okay." He veered off to the side of the road. "We'll walk from here."
    She got out first and. bracing herself, pulling the map out of her pocket. "I went to get this when I was pissed, thinking you'd sicced the doctor on me. I went upstairs, got this out because I was going to come out here on my own."
    She opened the map, handed it to him.
    "I don't remember doing that, marking it up. I don't remember, but that doesn't mean I imagined what happened yesterday. I must've had a panic attack during the night, and I'm blocking it out."
    "Then why are you showing it to me;"
    "You ought to know what you're dealing with."
    He studied the map briefly, then refolded it. "I saw your face yesterday when you came running down the trail. If you imagined seeing that woman killed, you're wasting your time in the kitchen. Anybody with that vivid an imagination should be in my line of work. You'd outsell J. K. Rowling."
    "You really do believe me."
    "Jesus. Listen up." He shoved the map back into her hands. "If I didn't I wouldn't be here. I've got my own life, my own work, my own time. You saw what you saw, and it's not fucking right. A woman's dead, and somebody ought to give a shit about it."
    She closed her eyes a minute. "Don't take this the wrong way, okay?" So saying, she stepped up to him. wrapped her arms around him, pressed her lips lightly to his.
    '"What would be the wrong way to take that?"
    "As anything other than sincere gratitude." She swung her pack over her shoulder. "Do you know the way?"
    "Yeah, I know the way."
    As they stepped off the road, she gave him a quick glance. "That's the first time I've kissed a man in two years."
    "No wonder you're crazy. How was it?"
    "Comforting."
    He snorted. "Some other time. Slim, maybe we'll go for something a little more interesting than comforting."
    "Maybe we will." Now think of something else, she ordered herself. "I ran down to the mercantile on one of my breaks this morning and bought your book, Jamison R.Brody."
    "Which one?"
    " Down Low . Mac said it was your first, so I wanted to start with that. And he said he really liked it."
    "So did I."
    She laughed. "I'll let you know if I do. Does anyone call you by your first name?"
    "No."
    "What's the P stand for?"
    "Perverse."
    "Fits." Now she wet her lips. "They could have hiked through from any direction."
    "You said you didn't see any packs, any gear."
    "I didn't, but they could have left it farther back, out of my line of vision."
    "There weren't any