Even Arcadia’s silences could be marred by violence. The light that had come was no salvation but an exit wound and left the world bleeding at its wake. It did not do well to linger in a place that Shaw did not call home, or even to leave the clinic at all, but they ought to move. A refusal to would be an act of disappearance. Though, Shaw surmised, their insistence to walk around was just as dangerous.
Let Them take. Let the daywalker take. Shaw thought, but the walk to the Common House had been quiet. The town would never be so merciful as to permit them a quick death.
It was a destination they had taken with no real purpose. They greeted back at the litany of faces who glanced, politely but curiously, at the doctor’s intrusion. Shaw had attended house calls diligently enough over the decade that their presence could very well be ignored, their crutch now only a brief point of interest as time went on. An old wound nursed better. Cared for until the kind hand was swatted away. Alone again, as before—but still in search of company.
Stella’s company had come first. Not unwelcome, though it had come with the threat of dressing up. But it would only be a small grievance. They stood leaning against the wall beside them, the mirror only revealing one side of their frame; the other buried in shadow. “My phone? No, no.” Shaw echoed Stella’s words. Their senses now cast with a persistent glaze, it was easy to mistake her features for her another’s. “But this town does commit to its gallows humor, doesn’t it?” Here they attempted a laugh. It had come, but only in sputters, lost in the afterlight.
“I’m not really sure where my phone even is, at this point.” No calls had come. No calls would ever come again, they thought, when their ghosts were already here. A son they loved. Far too many lives lost. A lover left behind. Instinctively, they found Stella’s eyes in the mirror and found ocean waves staring back. It hurt to linger, so they did not. “Why, did yours go off?” They said instead, eyes planted again on the floor.
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