In his terror, Stan had begun to babble.
“Anyway,” he said, “the whole thing coulda been a pleasant experience for everybody involved. Relatively speaking. But that old broad was a fighter—she was trying to keep me away from her man. Scratchin’ at my eyeballs and whatnot. Can’t say I predicted that. So things got more, uh, contentious and acrimonious, than I planned on. Joke is, I didn’t find anything worth a shit in that place. Been out here two or three times since and still ain’t found where they hid their damn money.”
Stan spat noisily on the ground.
“All right,” he said, “I got nothing else to say—except that you gotta hate god if you’re really fixing to drown me.”
And that was the thing that made X speak.
His voice was deep, but scratchy from lack of use. Zoe couldn’t tell what country he was from or even what century.
“Mark me well,” X said, then stopped to clear his throat and wipe the sweat from his forehead. “No one respects god’s love more than those of us damned to the Lowlands—for we know what it means to live without it.” He took Stan by the collar. “Now you will, too.”
He bent down and, though he looked too tired now to manage it, lifted Stan into the air.
Stan fought him, clung to his neck, scratched at his face.
X winced and, with what seemed like his last bit of strength, pushed Stan into the jagged hole in the ice.
Then he paused, turned—and looked straight at Zoe.
His eyes were overwhelming.
A wave rose inside Zoe’s chest. X seemed to be asking her a silent question. She thought maybe he wanted her permission to end Stan’s life.
Stan hadn’t even been aware that Zoe was standing there. He saw her now and gave her a sickening smile.
“Call him off, girlie,” he begged. “Please. Hell, I knew your father!”
X reddened, furious that Stan would dare to address Zoe.
“Stop your mouth,” he told him, “or I will plug it with my fist.”
X looked to Zoe again, and again she was shaken by the force of the connection. His eyes still held a question, but it wasn’t what she’d thought it was. She could see that now. He had no intention of sparing Stan, and wasn’t looking for her opinion. So what was he asking her then?
It came to her. Somehow X knew how much she had loved Bert and Betty. Somehow he knew that a lot of what was good and right about her was their doing—and that her hatred for Stan was like a fever under her skin. He was asking if she wanted to kill him herself.
Zoe felt a surge of something she couldn’t name. She didn’t even know if it was pain or relief. But it electrified her.
She walked across the ice toward X and Stan.
Stan was writhing spastically in the lake. The freezing water lapped into his horrible mouth. It was what he deserved, Zoe knew.
She walked as fast as she could without sliding sideways, planting her feet hard on the ice. She gained speed with every step. X never stopped looking at her, never stopped holding her with his eyes. Zoe still didn’t know what she was feeling, not exactly. She searched around in her mind for the word, and—though it didn’t seem possible—she could feel X inside her brain looking for it, too.
They found the word in the same instant.
It was not rage or vengeance.
It was mercy.
X’s eyes flashed with surprise. He pivoted away from Zoe and hurriedly put his boot on the top of Stan’s head, just as Stan had done to Spock.
He was about to push him under when Zoe hurled herself at him.
X was exhausted. Zoe was fierce.
She knocked him onto the ice before his boot came down.
three
She didn’t expect X to fall, but his body collapsed under her, and they went sprawling onto the lake. For half a second, they lay entangled. His skin smelled of pine and campfire smoke.
Zoe waited for him to spring up again, but he lay on his back, twitching with pain. He was more feverish than she’d realized. She got to her feet, and turned to Stan, who was sobbing in the water, his skin turning blue-gray. The thought of touching him repulsed her, but it wasn’t right that he die that way, no matter what he’d done.
She reached out with both hands and helped him out of the water. He stood in front of her shivering, his clothes soaked against his body. He looked scrawny and pathetic, like something that’d been pulled out of its shell.
“Hallelujah, girlie,” he said. “Your daddy’d be proud.”
It felt disgusting to be thanked by him.
Zoe said nothing. She just watched as he raced for his truck, the pale soles of his boots shining as he ran.
The engine coughed but wouldn’t start. Zoe knew what an engine sounded like when it wanted to cooperate. This one just wanted to be left in peace. After thirty full seconds of profanity—in which Stan strung together curses that she was pretty sure had never been strung together before—he got out of the truck, pulled a blanket from the back, and ran into the trees like an animal.
X sat up on the ice. She expected him to be in a rage, but he just stared at her, mournful and confused.
“What have you done?” he said.
Zoe didn’t answer—she didn’t really know what she’d done, other than act on instinct.
X turned to track Stan’s progress into the woods.
“Don’t go after him,” Zoe said. They were the first words she ever said to him and, though she often encased even the most sincere statements in sarcasm, she dropped her guard now. “Please. It’s wrong.”