Part 55 (2/2)

”G.o.d,” breathed Finn.

The echoes were still there, but faint.They bounced around through the dark air the way echoes will, but they didn't fade the way echoes should.

Whup-whup-whup.

Finn raised his hand, feeling its solid deadness as a weight supported by the muscles in his shoulder. He tried to raise his hand, as if signaling would matter with him lost inside a cave, wrapped in shadows and blood.

Finn felt something brush past his fingertips.

Something that was colder than his dying flesh.

Something that, at first, s.h.i.+ed away from his touch.

Something that came back, though.

As the echoes came back.

Whup-whup-whup.

The helicopter was coming.

”Please,” whispered Finn. He said it to the darkness and to the pain. He said it to the illusion of the furtive woman that his madness had conjured. He said it to the awful possibility of the helicopter drawing near and then going past him and away. He said it to the shadows.

”Please . . .”

Finn suddenly felt something near his ear. A bug?

No.

Breath.

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