Her eyes are glassy with tears, and for a brief moment, I feel something close to sympathy for her.
“I don’t want you to lose Julian too,” I say slowly. “But it isn’t suicide, it’s a different life. And it’s his choice. We should let him make it.”
Leila’s eyes flash.
“It’s a stupid choice,” she hisses. “That’s why he needs me. To remind him to be proud of what he is.”
Her features don’t change, but something shifts, turns the quiet terror I feel in her presence loud.A god, Julian had said Leila thought herself. But a wretched one, broken, always on the run.
“It’s easy for Julian to forget that he’s not human,” Leila continues. “He lives among you, and quite easily. He’s a man, after all, and a handsome, rich one at that; practically as close to a god as he can get. Except for when he feeds—and he does so sparingly, like it’s wrong to do, as if it’s wrong for a lion to hunt—he can pretend he’s one of you. He can even”—she shudders—“convince himself that helovesyou.
“But Rose and I were born in these bodies—as receptacles for violence. And so we can’t forget. We survive, and to do so we can’t shy from what we are. And that is different from you. Better than you. The men who aim to take from us, who pursue us to drain us of our beauty, our labor, who want to lord over us, hurt us,kill us…they become dust at our feet, just because we will it. You saw what they tried to do to Rose, at her show. Saw what she can do to them. How can you pretend that we’re the same?”
She’s leaning in close. For as much as she may disavow humans, she shares our anatomy, and I can see the subtle flutter of her carotid artery exactly where it should be, and imagine the pliancy of her flesh. Behind us, Robbie shifts on the porch, arms crossed around an apron that probably conceals a gun, and my racing heart sinks. If I attack her now, I won’t be able to warn Winona and Sophie.
“Brandon didn’t try to hurt you though, did he?” I ask, almost scared to hear the answer.
“He was a forty-year-old man who left his wife and kid for a twenty-two-year-old girl who worked under him,” she says drolly. “Are you trying to suggest he was somehow different from the rest?”
“Well, wasn’t that your fault?” I mutter. “Supernatural allure and all.”
Leila gives me a wry look, the intensity I felt earlier dissipating.
“Oh honey, don’t give me that much credit. I barely had to doanything. That one cameeasy.” She stands, and I immediately despair. “I’m glad we got to spend a little time together. And I know it was a small effort, but I really do want to give you a good exit. Your favorite people, eating your favorite meal. And now this glorious sunrise. A befitting end for a woman of your stature, I think.”
I huff out my laughter.
“My stature, huh?” I say, dragging myself to my feet. “What, so I’m not quite as inconsequential as the other people you murder?”
“Not even close. I always thought it was cool, seeing you in the cath lab,” Leila says. “Most of my life, women couldn’t do much to make a way for themselves without a man, no matter where you lived. And here you are, a Black woman in America, not even a full generation after Jim Crow, working as an interventional cardiologist and living independently with no husband in sight.” She gestures for me to follow, then walks me to the edge of the cliff, Robbie’s heavy footfalls crunching behind us. “It’s admirable, really. I thought about doing it myself, at some point.”
My curiosity feels morbid, but I indulge it anyway, because why the hell not.
“Why didn’t you?” I ask.
Leila shrugs, twirling her hair into a ponytail.
“Because the registration process is just so intense,” she explains. “My name and pictures plastered everywhere on the internet. Medical boards, fingerprinting, the whole shebang. Not exactly compatible with my…lifestyle.” She shudders, remembering something else. “Also, I’d probably have to get old.”
“Getting old isn’t that bad,” I say.
“Yes it is,” Leila insists. “I won’t deny that Rose makes for a very handsome older woman, but the joint pain?Menopause?” She pulls aface. “And on top of that, you become invisible. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone.”
It occurs to me that I’ll never experience my mother’s hot flashes or complain of my grandmother’s back pain, all things I had once looked to with dread and suddenly wish for myself, more than anything.
“I think Alphonse understood something that you don’t,” I say softly. “Your view of life is myopic. Entirely driven by fear of what is, for us, inevitable. But I’ve seen enough people die young to know the truth. That even with all its inconveniences, growing old is a blessing.”
The look Leila gives me is indecipherable, some part contempt, and something else I don’t quite understand. Longing? Then I see her eyes shift to something behind me, soften.
“Look,” she says.
I turn. The sun crests the horizon, painting the sky in streaks of pink and lilac and blinding orange. The distant hills are shrouded in fog that glows golden as it is touched by the light, and a breeze blows by that carries the heavy, heady smell of pine. For a moment, I’m so awestruck that I forget that Robbie is still looming behind me. That this glorious view might be the last thing I will see before I die. Instead, I think,I wish Jules could see this too.
I hear him, suddenly, in my head. I know it’s not really Julian—just the comforting encouragement of a memory, the last words he said to me. I imagine him next to me, shrouded in this morning’s angelic light. It hugs close to his high cheekbones, runs the line of his proud nose, and traces the curves of his lip, turns his brown eyes clear as maple syrup. I’ve seen this sight before, woken up to it in Alphonse and Mary’s cottage, the day I finally accepted him as mine.
Fight, Sean, he says.I know you know how.
I don’t think after that. I let my shard slide into my palm, yanking Leila’s shoulder down at the same time as I drive it into her neck. The glass slices open my skin—as suspected, it’s too wide to easily grip—but I can feel it diving into hers as well, the bright, blooming scent of fresh blood cutting through the wintry, clean air—