“Good,” Tim said, smiling. Edmund didn’t know how he managed a smile at a time like this, but he couldn’t deny it made him feel better. Tim nodded to them all, and they split up. Edmund was incredibly thankful to Tim for not making him carry the body. Body—it seemed real now. That was the thing about dealing with a problem; how to accept that there was a problem to deal with in the first place. Was that what the woman was now—a problem? No, Edmund would never forget she was a human being, and she was real. She was someone’s sweetheart, someone’s daughter, maybe even someone’s mother—his stomach churned at this. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time—just like he was. If it was the other way around, and he was dead, would he want that woman’s life to be ruined because of a little slipup? He didn’t think he would—it wasn’t going to turn back time, bring him back to life, so no, he’d want her to live on and be amazing.

He got to the suitcase, to find the retractable handle was broken in two, but the case was only halfway open and didn’t seem as devastated as first thought. He unzipped the case and started dumping in the clothes from the road. He picked up some flimsy underwear and felt utterly ashamed at touching a dead woman’s delicates. In the grand scheme of things, though, it wasn’t the worst thing he’d done tonight. He finished putting the clothes in and put the broken handle in and zipped it up. He stood up with it in his arms and walked a few paces back, scanning each side of the road. He saw nothing else, but he walked them both just to make sure nothing had been thrown farther.

He looked back toward the car and wished he hadn’t. Tim and Robert were carrying the woman—Tim at her shoulders, Robert at her legs. Her head lolled lifelessly on her chest, her forehead leaking with blood, but it was splattering on her chest. Tim and Robert obviously wanted to do it as quickly as possible, so were almost running to the car. Rachel stood at the open trunk, having covered it with a few blankets, which were some of Edmund’s mother’s favorites. He didn’t care.