I stabbed him one more time for good measure, twisting the blade. His scream echoed off the concrete walls of the basement, but I wasn’t worried. No one was around to hear him. I yanked out the blade and turned to walk over to a sink that stood a few feet away. Everything around us was so dilapidated, I was stunned there was even running water, but all the better. I rinsed off my hands and wiped the blade clean of his blood. His screams had fallen into rapid panting, and he watched as I used the edge of my coat to remove any excess water from the knife. I had stabbed him at least five times, so now all that was left to do was wait for him to bleed out. There weren’t many chairs in the room, so I hauled over a rickety card table. I am unusually short, so it groaned from the added weight, but it held. I just stared at the man in front of me. His strawberry blonde hair was pasted to his forehead by sweat, and a few strands hung in his eyes. There was a time where I would have longed to gently push the stray bits hair out of his eyes, but that time had passed. I just watched the bloodstains in his clothes slowly expand. It would be several minutes before he was dead, and he must’ve noticed because he decided to speak. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll make a difference, but I am so sorry.” I looked at the wall just behind him and said nothing. I had always found the country lilt to his voice endearing, but now it grated heavily on my nerves. He sighed. “Can’t you say something?” I tore my eyes away from the wall and stared into his. “What would you like me to say?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “If, you’re waiting for me to say that I accept your apology, you’re stupid. You’d be better off listening to the sound of your heartbeat while it’s still there.” He stared at me. I set my hands back down on the table and stared up at the ceiling. “You know, not everyone gets to experience the feeling of their pulse just getting slower and slower and slower, until it just stops.” I lowered my head to meet his eyes. “You would enjoy that more than what I have to say.” He nodded. “You’re probably right.” He sniffed. “Just say whatever you need to say. It’s okay. I know that you’re angry, and you have every right to be—” “Thank you for your reassurance,” I blurted. “But I can assure you that I am aware I have the right to be angry, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” I leaned toward him. “I’ve tried to forgive you hundreds of times in the months since, but what you did is unforgivable.” I dug my nails into the table. “You got my friends killed, Liam. I didn’t blame you when people came into my home and killed my parents because you talked. If I was being tortured I might let a few things slip too.” I stood up. “I didn’t blame you when those men drugged me, threw me in the back of a van, and planted a tracker in my stomach, because you were there with me, and you said everything was going to be alright.” I smiled sardonically. “I guess you didn’t plan on them breaking us out.” I squatted down so I was eye-level with him. “How did you do it? Did you make a call, send a text, write an email?” I leaned on the arms of his chair with my hands on either side of him. “What did you do while my friends had me laying in the back of a dirty van, trying to disable a bomb so I didn’t blow up when they surgically removed that same tracker. Were you messaging your new girlfriend, telling her to meet you down the street?” His breathing had slowed, and when he spoke his voice was weak. “I never thought there was a chance you could die, Maya. They wanted you alive—” “So you thought...what? That they would keep me as a pet?” I shoved his chair back and straightened. I took a breath to try and slow my heart rate. “Even if I could forgive you, you don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve forgiveness from me—you don’t even deserve it from yourself! How did you sleep at night, knowing what you did?” He just looked up at me, and I noticed the liquid gathering in his eyes, but I couldn’t care less. I was suddenly in another place at another time. I’d had flashbacks before, but this was different. It was a memory so real I could feel the heavy, paralyzing sensation of the drug, and the quiet hum of their voices. I was walking the line between reminiscing and hallucinating. “You know, they gave me drugs. After you left to do whatever. My friends gave me pain killers. I remember they said that my thoughts would fade away in an instant from the injection. But now I didn’t think I would ever be able to close my eyes again.” I gasped. “I was awake the whole time. I couldn’t move or feel, but I saw everything.” My heartrate started increasing, and I felt short of breath. “I watched those men open the doors and shoot every single one of them, and I saw you talking to them afterwards.” My cheeks felt tight. “And then I had no one. All because you.” I grabbed the knife. “And me.” I sliced my wrist with the ease of practice and watched as blood poured out from the gash. I felt lightheaded, but only for a moment. As suddenly as the wound had opened the skin knit back together, and a few seconds later there was nothing but a scar. “All because of me…” I looked back at him to see that he was barely upright. His skin had turned a dull gray color. In the quiet of the room I could barely hear him inhale. He was watching me. “Untie my hands.” He said quietly. We met eyes, and then I walked over to unbuckle the leather straps that held his wrists to the arms of the chair. When I was done I froze as he slowly raised his hands and gently wiped the wetness from my cheeks. He leaned forward so our foreheads were touching. I closed my eyes and revelled in the comfort of an earlier time. I felt everything, the dimming warmth of his body, the sharp sweet mint scent of him, the electricity of his skin against mine, and the fading sound of his heartbeat. In that moment I felt everything. But when he leaned in I forcefully yanked my body away. I saw his face fall and he seemed to somehow sink deeper into the wooden chair. He whispered, “I’m sorry,” He said again. “You can still turn this around, Maya. You don’t have to do this.” His breath hitched. “You can heal me.” I looked at him for a long moment. I stepped in front of him. I knelt down, and I placed my palm over his heart. He smiled and let his head rest against the chair. Then I waited. I waited for the weak flutter that would allow me to connect to his body, to raise his heart rate, heal his wounds. I waited. And waited, And waited, And waited.