It's not the first dead body you've seen, though you never really get used to it — you keep your expression as impassive as you can, looking at the pale pallor of Coach's corpse, because the Butcher is there, wearing the face of Shauna Shipman. Not letting her know how badly this affects you is the only armor you have. You pick the heart necklace off Coach's throat, jaw clenching, ignoring a shiver that races through you at how cold he feels. Dead flesh is so unsettling, it makes your skin crawl.
— You'll want to start with the joint.
Every muscle in your face twitches. Shauna's expression is almost — kindly, for once. Like two girls at a butchery, coming together over mutual distaste for the act that no one else is going to do. You blink at her, mouth tugging downward.
— Helps me to cover my eyes, but I know what I'm doing.
You don't say anything. She's the one making you do this — you fucking hate her for it, and she knows you hate her, and every olive branch isn't so much as batted away as it is ignored, like you can't see it, like it isn't even there. Your heart is too wounded and tired and traumatized to feel angry anymore. Shauna sighs and looks around, finding a bloody rag and covering Coach's face. It's almost worse, like you're two girls chopping meat — meat without a face, without a name. Meat you didn't love, meat who wasn't kind to you. Meat you didn't murder with one plunge of a knife. It should upset you, shouldn't it? You shouldn't take the easy way out. And yet — you don't move the cloth. You can't look at him anymore.
Shauna pulls her knife out of its sheath and passes it to you, handle first. Your fingers brush when you accept it, darkly grim over this thing that must happen, because Shauna said so, because Shauna is the new queen, long may she reign.. You don't think about stabbing her with it, though you think, probably, that you should.
But that's Shauna. The fastest girl on the field. One time she held your hair for you when you OD'd in the girl's locker room, because you didn't want your gym teacher to find out and tell your mom. She bought you orange juice. She signed your yearbook last year. Shauna isn't killing you because she hates you — she's teaching you a lesson.
You're sick of death and blood and pain. You pop the knife into Coach's shoulder socket anyway, because the meat isn't going to prepare itself, and Shauna doesn't care if you cry. She doesn't cry when she cuts, so neither do you.
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