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"Here’s what I mean" She jae appears of Lykosof Eo’s death, the one we pirated and broadcast …"
My heart thuds in my throat
"It wasn’t complete" She presses play and the room around us becomes the mine We’re a part of the three-die, not the stuff on the newsreels, not the stuff I’ve seen a hundred ti without a soundtrack
I hear my own cries of pain as the Grays beat the boy I used to be Weeping in the crowd The aard silence of unedited footage My s her head and Uncle Narol spits in the dust Kieran, my brother, covers his children’s eyes Feet shuffle Dio, Eo’s sister, stu Then Dio leans toward my wife Eo stands small, so pale and thin, little irl I reain, I don’t hear it, just as I didn’t hear it that day Suddenly Dio sobs uncontrollably and clings to Eo What was said?
"Use the equipment That’s what it’s there for, eh?"
I’ve wondered it a thousand tie I never kne I’d find it without raising suspicion And the thought scared h to hear? What could Dio bear that I could not?
In the news footage that was pirated, they don’t even show Dio But here, with the raw footage, I can rewind I do so I can aain: My s her head Narol spits Kieran covers the children’s eyes Feet shuffle Dio goes up the scaffold All the sound is nified I sort out the white noise with the controls, and I hear what my wife said to Dio
"In our bedroom, there is a crib I made Hide it before Darrow returns"
"A crib …," Dio murmurs
"He must never know It would break him"
"Don’t say it, Eo Don’t"
"I a in a void Staring at my hands The hands that could not save h to bear the truth of Eo’s second sacrifice Eo could have lived Eo could have given us the child anted That future wasn’t worth her silence I wasn’t worth it …
I feel so deep in my chest, a hollo ache Like blackness has opened in the pit of rief I weigh a ers clutch together Funny to think these hands have been with me this whole time They helped pull her ankles They buried her in the soil But they didn’t just bury her, did they?