The first place I went to was Buck's trailer. I had to drive with the radio off, it made me feel sick. I drove nude, as well, and dressed when I parked the truck in his yard. The sensation of clothing on my body was too much to bear, and as I stepped out of the truck I found myself scratching at my chest, eager to tear off my clothes again. The lights were on. I knocked on the door and I could hear him shuffling about in the house before he opened the door, leaving the chain lock as he peered out and saw me.

"Nico?" he asked.

"He's dead." I replied. Buck's expression furrowed up in confusion, and he gave me a short "one second" before shutting the door again. He unclicked the chain lock and let me into the trailer, and I stepped on carpet for the first time in over half a year. It felt like sandpaper against my feet. Buck had been in just his boxers, but was tugging on a flannel and crossing his arms to keep it somewhat closed as he looked me over.

"Who's dead?"

"I killed him."

"You--" Buck paused, making his way past me, shutting and locking his door again, "you what?"

"I killed him, Buck. I cut his head off."

Buck crossed his arms a bit more tense, his eyes squinting as he looked me over. I had rinsed off in the lake before getting in my truck, because I had to stop for gas and didn't want to be covered in blood at the pump, but I was still covered in dirt and twigs, leaves, bugs. I stunk to high heaven. Buck was really taking in what I said to him, and I could tell him believed me. He took a while to respond, but I could see in his face that he was contemplating what I said. I remained quiet, waiting for his reply.

"Where's the body?"

"There's no body. It all turned to ash when I smashed the head."

He looked apprehensive at that, and I proceeded to explain it all to him. I told him about the blood feeding, the lying, the drugging, the animal slaughter, the torture, the sex, the violence, the thing that happened on our wedding night, the things that happened afterward, the killing, the beheading, the fire, the wolf. He'd taken a seat with me on his couch while we talked, and I could see it in his eyes. What he said afterward didn't surprise me at all.

"I believe you" came quietly from his mouth, and his hand reached out to touch me on the thigh. I cringed and pulled away, drawing my knees up to my chest but offering a quiet "thanks, sorry, but thanks" in return. I couldn't bear to be touched. I wrapped my arms around my legs and sat tightly balled up in his sofa, and he retracted his hand in an understanding manner, a subtle nod of the head as if he gathered where I was at mentally at the time. 

"Dad doesn't know. I'm not gonna tell him" I told Buck, and he nodded in agreement. Dad wouldn't understand and, even if he did, it would just pass through him. There was no one besides Buck that I felt like I could tell, and that felt terrible. It felt worse the longer I sat with him, coming to terms with the reality that things were exactly as I'd left them: awkward, tense, confused. Buck believed it, but I could tell it still hadn't made enough sense. He knew it was real, but he didn't understand why any of it had happened at all. It was the same as when I broke up with him, and as I sat there I wanted so desperately for their to be some magical way to just reverse time, to run back the clock to when I stood up from the exact couch I was sitting on and told him I was leaving him. How wonderful it would've been to have not ever gotten in my truck and driven away, leaving him brokenhearted and lonesome at his door. I couldn't, though, and because I couldn't, we were here, with me explaining my life to him, breaking down slowly into tears as he scooted close and pulled me into a side hug. That time, I allowed it to happen.

"A shower would do you some good, kiddo," he began, "and i'll fix y' up some grub while you wash."

I agreed, feeling like washing would bring back some sort of normalcy. It hardly did, and I found the warm water and soaps to be even more overstimulating than I had when I'd visited dad's place over half a year ago. I felt sick as I finished the shower, drying off, looking around Buck's bathroom. He had more towels, more hygiene products than I'd recalled before. Perhaps he was taking better care of himself, I thought. I dressed in a shirt and pajama pants he'd left for me, and as I pulled the shirt over my head, I was overtaken by his musk, still sticking in the shirt. He'd given me something recently worn, and I felt as though we were in love again, the way it felt wearing his clothes. Buck knocked on the door while I was standing there, staring at myself fearfully in the mirror, unsure of what I was seeing in my reflection. I felt detached from who I saw, and I tried to dismiss that as I opened the door and he leaned on the doorframe.

"Bacon and eggs for dinner. Sound good?" he asked, cracking a smile.

"Can I stay here for a few days?" I replied, speaking through his smile, which faded slightly after I proposed the question. He simply looked at me, and I could see the muscles of his face were slouching, sinking farther away from that grin, into uncertainty, negativity.

"Buddy, I..." he began. I interrupted him, anxious.

"Dad's the last person I wanna be around right now. I just want a few days company, to...get through this. Clear my head. I don't wanna be alone." I admitted. Buck would chew on his lip as he leaned off the doorframe, his hands sliding nervously up to squeeze his elbows as he drew inward, pulling his flannel shirt tightly closed against his body.

"I...don't think that's a good idea, Nico." he said, and I defensively recoiled as I asked him why it was a problem. It made no sense. We'd stayed together all the time before I'd left. I knew staying in his bed would be strange, but just sleeping at his house? That shouldn't have been a problem.

"I can just sleep on the couch, Buck, I--"

"I'm seein' someone else, Nico."

The words permeated my being like winter winds through unprepared attire. I felt as if I'd underdressed for the coldest day of the year, and his words had chilled me, gotten down in my bones. He continued, though.

"It's new. We jus' started seein' eachother, and...I don't know how he'd take it if my ex was suddenly stayin' with me again."

I turned around. I had to turn around. I faced the shower and stared at the hygiene products, their collective hygiene products, and asked Buck "so I'm comin' home to being alone?"

"You're not alone, Nico, it's just for the best for a while. We got separate lives, and--"

"Everything that happened, it was all for nothing?" I asked.

"Well, no, y' still got to come home, and--"

Before he could finish his sentence, I lunged forward and grabbed the shower curtain, ripping it so aggressively it tore the rod from the wall, causing it to come down and crash, clanging around as I became tangled in plastic curtains. I began to snarl noises that wanted to be words, but instead came out as noises, animalistic noises from my throat, out my nose, spit out in a frothy fervor as I yanked myself free of the plastic, sweeping their hygiene products off the shelves of the shower before throwing my fists knuckle-first at the plastic shell of the shower, punching and punching and punching as Buck stepped up to me from behind, wordless, and laid a hand on the back of my shoulder.

I turned to him with my eyes peeled open, my lips wrinkled upward and my teeth bared. I know I must've looked positively rabid in that moment, my sclera bloodshot, my mouth pouring a foamy saliva as my chest hyperventilated. My fist was still raised, and I had it aimed at him. I know this because I saw his eyes wander from mine to my hand, to my clenched, veiny fist brandished at him, then back to my eyes. His palms were upright as a sign of surrender, but in that moment I was entirely unaware of how threatening I must've been to him. 

"DO YOU KNOW--" I began, that raised fist instead smashing into the drywall of the bathroom, busting open a hole and covering my red fur with chalky white. I struck open a second hole as I barked "DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID", but the weakness of the drywall felt like nothing to me at that moment. It didn't quell the boiling inside me, the burning I had grown to expect. Buck  had taken a step back, to the doorframe, and as he began to speak, I interrupted him by grabbing the heavy porcelain toilet tank cover. He hurriedly fled the bathroom, presumably because he thought I was going to strike him. In that moment, though, I didn't grasp that. I didn't understand. I was no better than a beast, prepared only to smash the porcelain on their floor, probably harm myself with some sort of broken piece afterward. I had no intention of harming him, but I also had no intention of leaving his house alive. I dropped it, though, and pursued him, out the bathroom and down the hall, back into the living room. I don't know why I did that.

Buck was standing in the kitchen with a cudgel in hand, some sort of tire thumper. He'd pulled it out of one of the cluttered kitchen drawers, ironically the drawers directly under the knife block. He'd clearly looked for something that would've done the least amount of harm to me, even in the frenzy of it all. In that moment, though, I couldn't see that. I could only see rage, I could only see my only support brandishing a weapon at me. I was entirely too far gone at that moment, and it showed in how I thrust out my chest, extended my arms and yelled at him.

"WHATTAYA GONNA DO? HIT ME?" I asked, pounding my own chest as I advanced on him. Buck stood his ground, holding the cudgel at his side. He wasn't even guarding himself yet. No part of him wanted this.

"Nico, buddy, I love--" He began.

"DON'T tell me you love me! Don't fucking say it! You have no idea! You have NO IDEA how it feels! How--you--" I stammered over my words. I was so angry, so beyond myself, I couldn't even finish my own sentences. A million things were in my head, but I just wanted to burn out. I was on fire. I wanted so badly for someone to snuff me out, even if it was myself. Buck, however, had not aggressed at all. His grip on the thumper was lax, disinterested in using it. I was now unarmed and he was stronger than me, he knew that. 

"I thought you were dead, Nico, I--" Buck began to explain. I wanted none of it at the moment, though, and I would scream over him with a voice quickly growing hoarse, raspy, higher pitched as my body was tensing and my throat was tightening up. 

"You replaced me!" I screamed. He tried to explain himself, but I just repeated it, over and over again, every time Buck attempted to speak. I had unraveled at that point, and as I repeated it over top of him, I began to sob. 

"You moved on! You forgot me! Just like he did! Just like everyone does!" I wailed. It all came out of a miserably crumbling demeanor that was rapidly losing the will to fight. My adrenaline was still surging, though, and I would turn that energy on his front door, sturdy wood, unyielding. I fell against it and began to pound the meat of my fists against it as hard as I could, despite the pain. I felt none of it at the moment, and the door did not yield to me as the drywall had. I scream cried and slammed my hands until they began to swell, and as they grew weak I turned to using my head, slamming my forehead against the hard wooden door several times before I felt arms around me, grabbing me, restraining me. I was dazed and rapidly weakening, but I could hear Buck's stern voice in my ear, commanding me to stop it.

I struggled, though, and as he wrapped his arms under mine and yanked me away from the door, I thrashed about and screamed more, my arms flailing effortlessly behind me, trying to strike him in some way that would free me. He was bigger than me, though, and had always been stronger. Even the muscle I had developed in the woods was useless in the state I was in, near concussed, blurry vision from the crying. Buck held me restrained as I struggled to find some way to continue burning out, to stop myself. I turned once more on my own body, bringing my forearm to my mouth and biting as hard as I could. My teeth pierced and I began to bleed, and as I bled I began to gnaw, screaming out my nose into my fur, Buck realizing this just in time to see the drool running down my chin begin to tint pinker and pinker. He tried to soothe me but I had none of it, and as he shifted from having to not only restrain me but also stop my self harm, I found that the piercing of the flesh had truly released a large amount of my energy. I felt as if I'd burst, and the surging pain alongside the coppery taste in my mouth had me rapidly coming down. I was wailing into my arm, which was still in my mouth, and as Buck turned his position slightly, he could tell I was calming down. He sat me on his sofa and turned to where he was facing me now, squatting like a father before me as he shushed me, one hand petting back my tangled hair as the other went for my wrist.

"Eaaasy, buddy, easy. Let's see that arm." He'd say, my rage succumbing to my desire to be loved, my battered state leaving me vulnerable. I released the grip on my own arm and he took it in his hand, looking it over as he whispered a quiet "oh, Nico..." as he saw the wound, ruby liquid running down the weaker red of my fur. Everything I had just done was setting in on me. I shouldn't have come to Buck's right away. I should have slept. I wasn't ready to see him. I wasn't ready to face the world again, after everything that had happened. I wasn't any readier to see him than I was dad, or anyone else. I had showed up at his home burning, self-immolated in my own mistakes, doused in what King had done to me, and I had set ablaze the tranquility of his home. I felt nauseous, partially from the surging of my hormones, but also from the guilt, from the crushing reality of everything that had happened. I had left Buck, I had met King, I had suffered through the entirety of King, and I had carried that suffering to Buck's doorstep and only further harmed our connection, and his home. I had surely terrified him. 

"I'm gonna go get you some wash rags and clean you up, okay? Sit right here. Okay?" He asked. I simply stared at my own arm, bleeding, and he asked "okay?" once more before I weakly nodded. Buck would then rise and pat me on the head before he left the room, heading back down past the bathroom, to his bedroom, where I heard him rummaging around. I knew, though, that I didn't deserve to be there. I had done nothing but set fire to his peace, to his home, to him. I may have burnt out in the woods, but King had ignited me again. King had put something terrible inside me and it was burning hotter than I'd ever felt. In the quietest way possible, I rose. I grabbed my keys from the hook by the door, and as soon as the deadbolt clicked and alerted Buck I was opening the front door, I ran. I ran to my truck, only to hear the sound of footsteps following me. I was able to get inside and shut and lock the door only to look up as I started the engine to see him there, in his yard, rags in hand, with that same confused look on his face I'd seen so many times before. All I did was confuse him, leave him standing there bewildered and broken-hearted over and over again, and as I threw the truck in reverse and spun it around to leave, I'd roll down the window and look back to him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I...I should have never left you in the first place, but I was so scared of burning you down. I was so...so scared of doing exactly this."

I paused, a lump in my throat as I fought myself from crying again.

"I'm on fire, Buck. I burn down everything around me. I thought King could stop it, but he only made it worse. I've gotta do this again, but I've gotta do it alone this time."

I didn't give him a chance to respond. I practically floored it, and I was on the road shortly after. I wasn't crying this time, though. I wanted to hold them in. I wanted something inside me to drown the fire, though I felt no reprieve from containing my emotions like that. I had to go somewhere and be entirely alone, and I had to remain alone until the fire inside me had died. I could not ask for help ever again. I could not seek company. I had to let it either burn out, or consume me entirely. I was going to smother it, or I was going to become it's tinder, but I would never let it burn anyone but me ever again.

There was a little old house I had seen in the woods when I was younger. It was about a half-hour walk into the woods behind the local motel, and it had been abandoned when I was ten, so I knew it was abandoned now, decades later. I parked my truck in the parking lot of the local grocery store, about a half-hour walk from the motel, an hour's walk from the woods. I called dad, knowing he wouldn't answer. I didn't want anyone to come looking for me after the found the truck. Dad would have it towed back to his place, but Buck would wonder. I knew Buck would wonder, and he'd reach out to dad.

"Dad, I just wanna call and say I'm alive. I'm going to head out of town for a while. I'm going to stay with a friend from Tennessee for a while. I'm safe, and I'll be home. Don't tell Buck i'm with a friend, though. He'll be jealous. Just tell him I'm catching a bus to Tennessee. Truck's in the Tiger Foods parking lot. I'll pay you for the tow when I get home. I love you both."

I locked the door, threw the truck keys into the driver's seat, and shut the door, locking myself into this decision. I set off on foot down to the Motel 7, down the side of the highway. Once there, I head to the woods, returning to familiarity. Only once I found myself disappearing into the dark of the trees, the inky shadow of the forest, did I feel normal again. I used my phone's flashlight only to navigate the way, and after a good hour or so of getting turned around, I found it. The farmhouse was still there, though it had fallen into a worse state than I had recalled. Twenty years had been terribly unkind to us both, and I felt it's disrepair to be a relatable sight to behold. The doors and windows had all been removed, and it was a shell without any sense of guarding itself from the elements. I knew that feeling all too well. 

---

Over the ensuing months, I attempted to make the place livable. I swept most of the debris out the door, and collected garbage from the Motel 7 during the night. There was a weekly bag of about-to-expire foods unused from the free continental breakfast, and I ended up subsisting largely on apples, oranges, bananas, and those small single-serving boxes of cereal. Sometimes, there would be unopened gallons of milk or orange juice, and I felt like I'd really found gold. I kept two gallon jugs, and eventually mustered up the courage to ask the nighttime clerk if I could fill them in their water fountain every few days. He was an elderly horned mammal, a saola, from Asia, and he spoke very broken English. He was friendly, though, and not only did he allow me to fill my water jugs, but he seemed to enjoy the conversation. I explained to him that I was homeless, and that I lived in the woods. He was my only contact with the outside world for months. Twice a week, I would come and get water, and we would talk. Eventually, I began finding that the discarded snack bag was always at the top of the dumpster. One time, it had old bedsheets in it, and blankets. I thanked him for that, and he smiled as he told me he had no idea what I was talking about.

My home had no electricity, but after a while it became a tolerable place to live. The warmer months were upon us, so I was able to get by alright, especially with the collection of bedding I had been given by the nighttime clerk at the motel. I spent my days wandering the woods, which were far less wild than the ones I'd inhabited before, but were still untamed enough to feel comfortable. I never left the woods during the day, though, for fear of being spotted. The nighttime clerk was the only one who knew me, and my secret was safe with him. One night, he asked me if I could read. I told him I could, and on my next trash run I found a box of books next to the dumpster. He, once more, denied any knowledge of how that came to be, but the box was filled with largely mythology, philosophy, odd subjects I assumed he enjoyed reading in his often solitary nights at the desk. I spent many of my proceeding days reading in the quiet of my home, and I felt as though there was something liberating about it, about a world outside myself, about those who had come before me and understood the world so much better than I did. I began to talk to the nighttime clerk about the books I was reading, and despite his lack of knowledge about them, he seemed to be familiar with every text. His name was Duy Khuong, but he told me to call him "Zee".

Zee and I grew to be fairly good friends. He was a widower, and lived alone. I explained to him how I had lost my husband as well, though I made sure not to mention the circumstances. He had no qualms with me having been married to a man, and we discussed our relationships very little after first discussing them together. My life felt like it was beginning to develop a bit of a routine, and some sense of stability, despite it all. I was legally homeless, and living out of a dumpster and from the kindness of an elderly man, but I felt as if I had some control of myself. Everything was in my hands, and I felt as if this was the start of my return to normalcy. Fate, I would later discover, had different plans entirely.