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CHAPTER FIVE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, running the other through my hair. A terrible concoction of gasps and sobs well at the bottom of my throat, swirling around my stomach.
I lost him.
'Here,' Claire says, bottle of water held out to me. I swig as hard as my body allows between shaking hands. It does nothing to aid me. I collapse back into the snow, limbs clattering and ears ringing.
'Laura, we need to get in the car. Can you stand?'
I shake when I look at him. I was still furious. Last nights conversation still welled angrily in my thoughts, my spine against our rental car's back tyres. I felt that slight deflect of not wanting to be near him. That he had nerve to do so with all that he was having to keep from me. But he does so cautiously, with care; tears welled with generous tears. It struck me then, what I was saying out loud to him. To both of them. To all of us as a family however cracked it may be. It weighted on me terribly, what I'd done, what I'd allowed to be done. 'I'm... no, I'm sorry, I didn't, I wasn't—'
With a slow grace, I felt him clasping fingers around underneath arms and slowly hauling me into Claire's. 'C'mon,' she says.
I stumble with her across the frigid, empty road. One step to the next to feel my body crumpling into the back seat of their car. All the while, my tongue wound up like a little jewellery box. 'They'll kill him... they're gonna kill him... they'll kill him...'
