Forcing his legs to move, Eugene slid into his car, settling his camera in the passenger seat before wrapping his shaking hands around the wheel. He couldn't even print the picture he had taken, not now that he was unwilling to write the story that accompanied it. The threat of violence still hung in the air. It tasted like gunmetal and copper tang.

As he drove away from the bank, heading south for Chanlarivyè, the dead cop stared after him. Flies landed on his open eyes, gone glassy and pale in the blinding sun.

That evening, sore from the day's long drive and still sick with anxiety and the scent-memory of all that blood, Eugene shut himself in his dark room to develop the film. He had repurposed his linen closet for the job, removing the shelves to make just enough room to house him and his equipment. It was claustrophobic in there, stuffy and glowing red from the bare bulbs, but he had adjusted to the discomfort. There were other dark rooms he might have used—enough of his colleagues at the Chanlarivyè Gazette developed their own film—but he liked the privacy of having his own space. Some pictures, he didn't need anyone else chancing on. Some pictures, he was a fool for daring to take at all.

There was one such photo he kept in his bedside drawer. Benoit was more of a neighbor than a friend, but he had stretched out for Eugene's camera, revealing a long, slow slide of skin as the bedsheets slipped away. The setting sun cast stripes over his ribs through the blinds.

"I'll burn it," Eugene promised as he put the camera aside, his mouth pressed to Benoit's shoulder, tasting the salt.

He didn't burn it, but he buried it under a flood of myriad other items until it was lost at the bottom of the drawer, where he was careful not to disturb it. Benoit looked at him sometimes like he knew Eugene had kept it, but he never said anything, so Eugene didn't, either.

The Gazette didn't know Eugene had gone to Baton Rouge that morning; there was no call for him to publish the photo of Walker and Monnet or write an article on the violence. Other papers could tell that story. America had no shortage of bank robbers or killers, but there was always a gossipy undercurrent to the articles on Walker and Monnet. People wanted to dissect the tilt of Walker’s hat and the brand of cigarettes he smoked, the cut of Monnet’s dress and the necklaces that struck her breastbone as she ran. The way they bared their teeth in smiles sharp enough to cut, eyes glinting with the promise of bullet shells and pocketknives. And other, crasser things—the fate of Monnet’s husband, the fact that she and Walker wore no wedding bands, and his hair—wasn’t it a little long? What business did a man have, wearing his hair in a girl's cut like that? Do you think—