The Drying Blood

My shirt sticks against my ribs. A dark crust widens over the torn fabric. My left flank beats to the rhythm of a heart separate from my own, right where the militia's gunfire plowed through the meat. I run an uninjured finger over the wound. The blood is lukewarm. Banal. The Mutation demands the blaze. Today, it will have to settle for flesh beginning to infect in the darkness. Jolanda sleeps three paces away. Her knees pulled tight under her chin. She knotted her scarf around Nita's neck to wedge her against the cold wall. Lio collapsed on a heap of gray tarps. The hideout is cramped. A buried ventilation room under the wide avenues of the Obsidian Sector, torn from the militia by our underground flight. I reach my right hand toward Jolanda's jacket to pull it back up over her bare shoulder. The gesture stops short. My obsidian arm twitches. An erratic thermal discharge travels through the black glass joints. Exhaustion makes my own body unpredictable. If I brush her with this unstable wrist, I will calcine her to the bone. I withdraw my arm. I press it against my chest, holding my breath. The Flame gives me the weapons to tear down walls, but it denies me contact without destruction. In the muteness of the room, a phantom rhythm resonates. Boom-tak-tak. Marisol's hands beat the hollow drums of our old courtyard. The cadence knocks in my calves. It climbs up my spine. My sister had taught me to inhabit the space between the strikes. I lower my head. The Forgotten stir beneath my skull. A damp, stubborn crowd demanding the surface. I close my mind over them. I blanket them so they do not set the entire room ablaze. My neck gives way under this collective weight. Lio whimpers in his sleep. His fingers tighten on the iron bar he clutches against himself. My wound oozes. I will watch my own blood dry.