And then, there was only the sound of the burning brush surrounding them. Nikola put his hands down, the focus of his eyes fading. He leaned over to examine Kaveh, and in her horror at what Nikola had done, she had already forgotten what Ampersand said.

“He’s already gone.”

No. No, it can’t be true. He’s wrong.

Nikola moved away from Kaveh toward the two of them and spoke something in Pequod-phonemic. Ampersand had not released his iron grip on her, despite the fact that the shooting had stopped. Then Ampersand’s body moved, and for an instant, she mistook it for him standing up, rather than being dragged off the ground by a pair of giant black claws. He held on to Cora for a couple seconds before his grip grew flaccid, and he dropped her.

Cora shot up to her knees to get a better look at Kaveh. No. No. He has to be wrong. She looked back at Ampersand and at Nikola. Nikola seemed to have forgotten that she even existed. Ampersand lifted his head, the effort seeming to tax every reserve of energy he had in him, and his focus met hers. He looked at her, detached, like he was only seeing her for the first time.

“No!” she yelled, shooting up to her feet to grab him. Nikola was faster. In less than a second, he had wrapped both of them into a giant mass and had disappeared, pulling smoke into their wake. Cora launched herself toward them, but grasped only hot air.

Smoke filled her lungs, and already, she was finding it hard to breathe. She crawled over to Kaveh’s body, turning him on his back and screaming at the sight of his face. It didn’t even look like his face, the eyes open and glassy, his focus lopped to one side, his jaw hanging as though it might break off.

She lifted his head up into her lap; there was blood everywhere, pouring out of his head. She used her other hand to frantically feel around for a pulse, like she was just looking in the wrong spot. Nothing.

She ran her fingers through his hair, his beautiful hair that was caked with blood and brain matter and bits of skull. Then she felt it, felt the entry wound through his bloody hair, felt the hole in his skull, felt the edges of the bone. She screamed and jerked her hand away like she’d been bitten by a snake. She’d only felt the entry wound for milliseconds, but she knew that memory, that feeling, would stay on her fingertips for as long as she lived, and she was struck with the desire to cut her fingers off.