Page 60 of So Thirsty

“What?”

“You hit him pretty hard.”

She puts her head in her hands. “He was stoned.”

“Yeah. So?”

“I think…I think we’re high.”

“I’m not high,” I say. Only it’s been so long since I’ve been high, I don’t really remember what it’s like.

“Your eyes look funny.”

“Stop. Let me think.”

I almost suggest that she go inside and get our stuff and call reception for a valet, if there even is one who isn’t currently bleeding in the snow. Except I don’t trust her to be on her own. But I can’t leave her with Matthew. I also don’t want to risk leaving him alone, because what if he comes to and tells someone what he saw, what happened? What will we do then?

What if we’re arrested? What if Naomi’s bloodlust takes over and she attacks the police?

What if they shoot us? Will we die? And if we don’t die, will they turn us over to the government? Put us with the aliens?

And what if…what if I am high?

“We could get your car, and then, like…go,” she says.

“What about him?”

“He didn’t lose that much blood. He’s already making more,” she says. “Can’t you feel it? I can feel it. Like a…sixth sense. You know, I could—we could—probably have a little more. One for the road.”

“No,” I say.

“One sip.”

“No sips,” I say, sidestepping the rabbit corpse to grab her by the arm and drag her through the snow. I snap a branch off a tree and pull it behind us, covering our tracks.

“Look at you, Nature Lady,” Naomi says. I prefer her being stoned and goofy to her being bloodthirsty, but none of this is ideal.

And I can’t shake the sense that we’re being watched. That the trees have eyes, or that there are eyes peering out from behind them, or from above. We’re being spied on. There are witnesses to our crimes.

I look up, searching the sky for drones.

Does the Waterfront have cameras? Will they have security footage of us going into the woods, coming out? Will they be able to zoom in, see how bloody we are?

Am I being paranoid because I’m high, or am I justified in all this worry?

“We need to change before we leave,” I say. “No one can see us like this. We need to hurry.”

When we get to the edge of the woods, I ditch the branch and start walking backward, swiping my feet from side to side to disturb our footprints in the stretch from the woods to the cottage.

“This would be easier without all this fucking snow,” I mutter to myself. Naomi shuffles beside me, her mind elsewhere, on another planet.

“The taste,” she says. “Remember making lemonade? Hot summer day, cold lemonade. Pink. The pink kind. The pink taste…”

We make it to the cottage, and I nervously fumble the key twice before finally managing to get the door open.

“Go,” I tell Naomi. “Hurry.”

I lock the door behind us, like we’re being chased by monsters, which is stupid, because we are the monsters.