Blood Runs Cold

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In the lights of the police cruisers, her face was a strobing image of pain and fear. But she was still, to the child in her arms, a haven. She ran as fast as her violated body would allow, pressing his head to her cheek, his hair soaking up their sweat, blood, spit, tears. A terrible, ruined stench rose from them in the damp heat.

She staggered on, flinching at the stones and branches underfoot, her shoes long lost, too beautiful for the night. The trees swayed toward them and away, and when they gave enough shelter, she stopped. She prised the tiny hands from around her neck, breaking the dead-man’s grip of a seven-year-old boy. She tried to smile as she lowered him to the ground. Black pinpricks of gravel shone from her lips.

‘Do not make a sound,’ she said. ‘Not a sound.’ Her voice was edged in nicotine.

The boy quickly clamped his arms around her legs. She shoved him sharply backwards, away from her wounds. He fell hard. She watched without feeling. He got up and moved toward her again, tears streaming down his face.

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