Her eyes were wet. Not crying—Leyley didn't cry, not since they were small—but something had cracked behind them. Something raw and pink and furious.
"If we go out there," she said, "and it's just more of the same—more people who want to put us in boxes—promise me something."
And that was the problem. He loved her like a scab he couldn't stop picking.
Andy sat on the floor of their shared room, knees pulled to his chest, watching his sister sleep. She was curled on the stained mattress, one hand clutching a butter knife—her "just in case" for the demon in the vents. Her hair was a rat's nest. Her lips were chapped. She was the most terrifying thing he had ever loved. the coffin of andy and leyley
The demon in the vents watched them go. And for the first time in a long, long time, it smiled too.
"Whatever we have to."
The door to the apartment was still chained. The landlord's body had been gone for three days—they'd shoved it down the garbage chute in pieces, working in silent tandem like a two-headed animal. No one had come looking. No one ever did. Her eyes were wet
Leyley's expression didn't change, but the air got colder. "Mom's dead."
In the morning, they packed the butter knife, the last of the preserves, and the bones of their old lives into a grocery bag. Andy unchained the door. Leyley went first, as always.
She crawled over to him, moving like smoke. Sat down so close their knees touched. "That's not a prophecy. That's just your brain being dramatic." She reached out and tapped his sternum with the flat of the blade. "You're not glass. You're the only solid thing in this whole rotten building." "If we go out there," she said, "and
"I saw Mom today," he said quietly.
He wanted to believe her. He always wanted to believe her.
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