Five Survive

“Do you want to hold it up and I’ll tape it?”

“That’s what she said!”

“Simon, come on, really,”

five other people. B

I’m sorry I never kissed you.

Red,” he said again, bringing her eyes back to his.

“Stop, Arthur,” she whispered.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Red,” he said, low, soft, almost too soft to cut through the air in this RV. “Look at me.”

She was looking at him.

“It’s not your fault,” he said.

“What?” Red sniffed.

“It’s not your fault your mom died.”

Red paused, held her breath.

“I know,” she said flatly. It wasn’t her, it was Catherine Lavoy. They’d all just learned that together.

“Red,” Arthur said, fingers gentle against all her broken bones and skin. “It’s not your fault.”

Red blinked. “I know,”

“This is turning into Lord of the Fucking Flies. We’re going to end up killing each other, forget about the sniper.”

A weapon?” Simon snorted. “Yeah, that sniper won’t know what’s hit him when I slowly charge at him with my Gillette razor.”

love The Godfather. ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold,’ ” he said in a dreadful Italian American accent

Here and not. Red and black. One moment there, another gone. Her face in the glass. Disappearing in the light of oncoming headlights, reappearing in the dark of outside. Gone again. The window kept her face for its own. Good, it could keep it. Back, the window didn’t want it either

But it was harder to ignore something when you were trying.