The sheets were a lie. They were thin enough to feel the nubby texture of the mattress pad underneath, starched into a false crispness that would soften into a limp, vaguely damp surrender by morning. I’d learned the life cycle of motel bedding. This was the Optimistic Stage.
I lay still, listening to the drum of water against fibreglass. Sam’s showers were a ritual of their own. He’d stand under the spray until the water ran cold, as if trying to wash away something clinging to the inside of his skin, not the outside. The silence in his absence was a physical weight in the room, pressing down on the faded floral-print comforter.
I pushed myself up. The air was cool, smelling of motel soap and damp plaster. A quick sweep of the room confirmed our temporary brand of safety: the line of salt I’d laid myself across the threshold, the duffel bag of weapons tucked under the flimsy desk, the reassuring heft of the Colt Python on the nightstand beside me. My fingers ghosted over the cool steel.
My gaze caught on the picture hanging askew over the television. Two sad-looking deer drinking from a perfectly placid, vaguely radioactive-looking lake. I had a private taxonomy for motel art. This was Classic Kitsch, sub-genre Mid-Century Melancholy. It was better than last week’s in Flagstaff, which had been a terrifying example of Abstract Despair—just a single, angry red slash on a beige canvas. I still had nightmares about that one.
A flicker of movement by the window. My breath caught in my throat, a stupid, reflexive hitch. A dusty brown moth batted itself against the grimy glass, drawn to the flickering neon ‘Vacancy’ sign. I exhaled, my heart thumping a stupid, frantic rhythm. Moths. Not demons, not ghosts, not theleviathans. Just moths. I hated them. The papery flutter of their wings, their mindless, self-destructive drive toward the light. It was too close to a metaphor for a life I was trying very hard not to think about.
I focused on a task. Tidying. I picked up Sam's discarded flannel from the floor, folding it into a neat square and placing it on our single suitcase. The scent of him—gunpowder, old books, and that clean, specific Sam-smell—rose from the fabric.
The bathroom door opened, spilling a cloud of steam into the room. He stood there, framed in the doorway, wearing a grey t-shirt and sweats. His hair was dark with water, curling at his neck. For a man who’d just spent twenty minutes trying to scald himself clean, the tension hadn’t left his shoulders. It lived there, a permanent resident.
He didn't look at me. His eyes went straight to his laptop, open on the desk. Its screen cast a pale, bluish light on his face.
"Hey," I said, my voice softer than I intended.
He blinked, his focus shifting to me. A smile touched his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Hey, you."
He walked over to the desk, not to the bed. He sat, his back mostly to me, and his long fingers found the trackpad. I watched the line of his spine, the way his shoulders hunched forward. He was gone again, pulled into the glowing rectangle. Whatever he was hunting, it wasn’t over.
I walked up behind him, wrapping my arms around his chest and resting my chin on his shoulder. The heat of his skin through the thin cotton was a comfort. I peered at the screen. It was a mess of open browser tabs, a digital library of paranoia. But one image stood out—a grainy scan from an old book, a medieval-looking woodcut of a skeletal figure holding a complex, spidery astrolabe. Its empty eyes seemed to stare back at me.
"Sam," I murmured into his hair.
He didn't answer, just kept scrolling.
This was the part that wore on you. Not the monsters. Not the driving, or the fake names, or the constant threat of a violent end. It was this. Sitting two feet away from the person you loved most in the world and feeling like they were on another planet.
I took a breath. Then I reached over his shoulder, put my hand flat on the laptop, and gently closed the lid.
The sudden silence and darkness on the desk was jarring. Sam flinched, his whole body going rigid under my hands.
"Eli," he said. His voice was tight. Not angry. Worse. Strained.
"It's over, Sam," I said quietly. "For tonight, anyway. The salt is down. The gun is loaded. We're safe." I leaned in, pressing my lips to the side of his neck. "Come to bed."
For a long moment, he didn't move. I could feel the argument happening inside him, the battle between the hunter and the man. The hunter was losing. Slowly, he let out a breath that seemed to carry the weight of the whole hunt. He covered my hand with his, his thumb stroking my knuckles.
"Yeah," he whispered. "Okay."
He let me lead him to the bed. He let me pull the thin, lying sheets up over them. But as he settled beside me, his arm wrapping around my waist and pulling me flush against him, his eyes were open, staring at the water-stained ceiling. He was here, but he wasn't. And I was left staring into the dark, the image of that skeletal figure burned onto the back of my eyelids.