Kafka’s Metamorphosis lay open on my lap, unattended, as I watched dad’s parked squad car at the end of the street. He’d been inside the paint-chipped house for a while now. Ellison was kicking his legs out in mom’s antique rocking chair, the chair emitting a rhythmic squeak as it reached its apex, leaning so far back it threatened to topple at any moment.

“I’m starving.” Ellison complained.

“You’re not starving. You’re hungry.” I corrected absentmindedly, still focused on the flurry of unusual activity at the end of the street.

“It’s almost six thirty.” Ellison said.

“Dad’s work is important. Keeps the city safe. Being off-schedule goes with the territory.” The same couldn’t be said for every cop. You had to either be blind or blatantly ignore the news to believe that. But dad was old school. All about listening and protecting the community. Putting people first. He talked about them like they were individuals, not some faceless conglomerate. And even if I found him naive at times, it was hard not to respect how much he cared.

A muffled pop reached us. It could have been anything. Car backfire, or an unfortunate squirrel that scurried its way into a power converter.

Then a cluster of five muffled bangs followed, identical to the first.

I slipped from the alcove, placing my back against it. “Get down.” I snapped at Ellison. He flopped wide-eyed from the chair to the ground, both of us flinching from the clatter as it fell, one corner banging against the wall.

“Gunshots?” Ellison whispered, his face pale.

“Where’s Iris?” I hissed.

“Napping with mom.”

We waited in tense silence for a follow-up. When none came, I peeked over the flowered cushions, exposing as little of myself as possible. A few of the neighbors had emerged from their homes, gawking at the house at the end of the street.

My heart hammered in my chest. It was impossible to tell exactly where the sound had come from, but it was undoubtedly from the direction of the end of the street.

Doubt and fear gnawed at me, along with the screaming need to do something. Anything.

“Check on Mom and Iris, then call 911” I told Ellison.

“What are you going to do?” Ellison asked, alarmed.

“Keep watch. Stay low and get moving.”

Ellison jolted into action, retreating towards our parents’ room in a low crouch.

It’s hard to explain what happened next. Put it into words. The best I can describe it is as a scene that materialized in my mind. An image of my father bleeding out on the floor, frightened and alone. It was so visceral and real that I had to confirm it.

Time bled together as I walked out the front door and through the gate in a daze, leaving it open behind me. Asphalt burned my bare feet as I walked numbly towards the house, my pulse vibrating in my neck, vision shuddering with every heartbeat.

Dad had taught me about the bystander effect early on. Given me a slightly sanitized rundown of the murder of Kitty Genovese, a woman who was stalked and murdered over the course of half an hour, even as she screamed for help and dozens of witnesses watched from their windows. The records are spotty, but it was probably more than an hour before the first call came in.

Our so-called neighbors were just standing around, trying to peer through the door at a distance for a better look.

I hated them for their inaction. Hated them with every fiber of my being.

No one even tried to stop me as I walked past. I’m not sure what I was thinking—apart from if dad was hurt, I wanted to help him, slow the bleeding and buy time until the ambulance got there.

As I stepped through the front door, the scent of mildew and stale cigarettes washed over me, followed by a metallic scent I’d identify far later as methamphetamine.

The walls were bare and undecorated. Soiled carpet stuck to my bare feet.

A woman lay unconscious on the floor, battered and bruised. Her face and upper-body littered with dark and purple bruises everywhere her tank top didn’t cover. Numbly, on autopilot, I stooped down and pressed two fingers to her neck as my father had shown me.

There was a weak rhythmic pulse beneath my fingertips. I left her and moved on.

Dad was laid out on the floor next to the couch. He’d fallen backwards, likely due to the six gunshot wounds in his chest. His once vibrant blue eyes were almost colorless, expression locked in a permanent rictus of surprise. As if he couldn’t believe someone had actually shot him.

I pressed my fingers against his neck, though there was no need. He was gone.

A wave of grief washed over me and then disappeared, as if it had crossed an invisible threshold and was suddenly snuffed out.

Something cold and foreign took its place.

“Who the fuck are you?” For the first time, I noticed the skinhead on the couch. He was rubbing his head with both hands, the cylinder of a light-metal revolver clinking against his temple.

When I didn’t answer, he unraveled further. “It doesn’t matter. God dammit. Look what that bitch made me do.”

“The woman you beat to hell made you kill a cop?” As the words left my lips, it felt like someone else was saying them. The utter lack of accusation in my voice was probably what saved me. I sounded genuinely curious.

“Fuck. I’m fucked.” He rubbed his head vigorously, the revolver leaving red marks on his skin. My gaze strayed from the man to the surrounding scene. There were dozens of burned down cigarette butts in the ash try, and a bowie knife on the table next to a glass pipe.

It called to me.

This had happened before. Ellison’s oblivious bully sitting on the overpass, practically begging to be pushed, was the most recent example. But there had been others. Many others.

I’d always managed to talk myself out of it. Therapy had helped. Talks with my father had helped.

Now my father was gone, and the therapy couldn’t help me here. There was no disproportionality to focus on. No unevenness in the scales. And with my father dead, the cops wouldn’t look twice before labeling it self-defense. No consequences to speak of.

Still, he outweighed me by fifty to seventy pounds.

“You have to wash your hands. Get the GSR off.”

The man stared up at me. “What?”

“Gunshot residue. You’re coated in it at this point. You have to wash your hands.” I was twisting advice dad gave me on how to speak to someone in a crisis—let the slightest doubt into your voice, and they’ll latch onto it. But if you speak with confidence and authority, they’ll cling to your words like a lifeline.

The man stared at me. At first, I thought he might call out my bullshit.

On his long list of issues, the GSR was near the bottom. The murder weapon and empty shells were towards the top, along with the many witnesses who had heard the shots, and if Stockholm syndrome hadn’t set in too deeply the unconscious woman could easily turn on him.

The man stood to his feet suddenly, dropping the gun. “Fuck!” He rushed to the bathroom.

Using a filthy rag from the table as a buffer, I picked up the gun by the trigger guard and popped the cylinder open to confirm he hadn’t reloaded. The casings were empty. Good.

With that sorted, I took the knife from the table. The hilt fit snugly in my hand as if it had always been there.

Everything blurred together after I followed him into the bathroom. The next thing I remembered was my mother’s face, hovering above me.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, ruining day-old mascara. “Give me the knife, baby.”

I handed it to her.

Sirens drew closer.

/////

It’s a rare thing to lose your husband and son in the same evening. Does she think of that night when she drinks, I wonder?

Talia’s growl of alarm came too late. A sharp, stinging pain sunk deep into my back. I screamed, whirling to face the threat and coming face to face with a mirror.

No one would have blamed you for it. The sentence would have been light, the situation laden with mitigating circumstances, even if they knew the truth of how it all went down. Why, then, did you run from it, lock it away so deeply that even I can only show you this much?”

The lithid had leaped back several feet after the surprise attack. It had also taken my form, clad in the eldritch armor, a twisted mongrel at its side. Dagger in one-hand, crossbow in the other.

“Bastard.” Talia said through gritted teeth. “That might be the actual lithid. It looks far more real than the shadows did.” Talia said. “Matthias. Can you fight?”

I swooned on my feet, unable to answer her. was fading, but from the remnants, this form didn’t have threads as the others had. I withdrew a health potion and chugged it, then wiped the residue from my mouth.

“Pretty sure you’re on the money,” I panted. “We need to end this quickly.”