Praying for Sleep

against Owen’s chest once more, mindful of his shoulder, she said, “His brain’s gone completely. He wanted to sacrifice himself for me, I think. I don’t really know. I don’t think he does either.”
    “Where’s Portia?”
    “She’s gone for help. She should’ve been here by now so I guess the car got stuck.”
    “The roads are mostly out in the north part of town. She’ll probably have to walk.”
    Lis told him about Trenton Heck.
    “That’s his truck outside, sure. Last I heard he was going to Boyleston.”
    “Bad luck for him he didn’t,” she said. “I don’t know if he’s going to make it. Could you look at him?”
    Owen did, examining the unconscious man with expert hands. He knew a lot about wounds from his military service. “He’s in shock. He needs plasma or blood. There’s nothing I can do for him.” He looked around. “Where is he? Hrubek?”
    “I locked him in the small bedroom upstairs, the storeroom.”
    “And he just walked up there?”
    “Like a puppy . . . Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth. Lis went to the closet and set free Trenton Heck’s dog. He was not pleased at the confinement but strode out unhurt.
    She hugged Owen again then walked into the greenhouse, picking up the newspaper clipping. She read, The BETRAYER hIdeS as the crusher of heADs. i AM to be sacrificed to save POOR EVE
    She exhaled in repulsion at the madman’s macabre words. “Owen, you should see this.” Lis glanced up and saw her husband studying Michael’s pistol. He flipped the cylinder open and was counting how many bullets were inside. Then he did something whose purpose she couldn’t understand. He pulled on his leather shooting gloves and wiped the gun with the soft cloth.
    “Owen, what are you doing? . . . Honey?”
    He didn’t respond but continued this task methodically.
    It was then that Lis realized he still intended to kill Michael Hrubek.
    “No, you can’t! Oh, no . . .”
    Owen didn’t look up from the gun. He spun the cylinder slowly so that, she supposed, a bullet was aligned under the hammer. With a loud click the gun snapped shut.
    Lis pled, “He wasn’t going to hurt me. He came here to protect me. His mind’s gone, Owen. It’s gone. You can’t kill him!”
    Owen stood very still for a moment, lost in thought.
    “Don’t do it! I won’t let you. Owen? . . . Oh, God!”
    A ragged white flash of light enveloped his hand and all the panes of the greenhouse rattled at once. Lis threw her palm toward her face in a mad effort to deflect the bullet, which narrowly missed her cheekbone and snipped a lock of her tangled hair as it streaked no more than an inch from her left ear.

32
    She fell to the floor, toppling a small yellow rose shrub, and lay on the teal slate, her ear ringing, smelling her own burnt hair.
    “Are you mad?” she shouted. “Owen, it’s me! It’s me !”
    As he lifted the gun once more, there was a blur of motion, a brown streak. The dog’s teeth struck Owen’s injured arm just as they had Michael’s. But her husband, not numb to the pain, cried out. The pistol flew from his hand and clattered behind him.
    Then he was frantically kicking the dog, hammering on its solid shoulder with his good fist. The hound yelped in pain and fled out the lath-house door, which Owen slammed shut.
    Lis leapt for the pistol but Owen intercepted her, grabbing her wrist and throwing her to the rocky floor. She rolled, opening patches of skin on her elbow and cheek. She lay for a moment, gasping, too shocked to cry or say a word. As she climbed to her feet, her husband walked slowly toward the pistol.
    My husband, she thought.
    My own husband! The man I’ve lain with the majority of nights for the past six years, the man by whom I would’ve borne children had circumstances been different, the man with whom I’ve shared so many secrets.
    Many secrets, yes.
    But not all.
    As she ran into the living room, then down the basement stairs, she caught a glimpse of him standing, gun in hand, looking toward her—his quarry—with a piercing, assured stare.
    His gaze was cold and for her money the madness in Michael Hrubek’s eyes was twice as human as this predatory gaze.
    Poor Eve.
     
    No light. None. The cracks in the wall are large enough to admit air. They’re large enough to bleed brown rain, which here falls not from the sky but from the saturated earth and stone of the house’s foundation. If the time were two hours later, perhaps the uneven wall would admit