Bella is gone. There is no way of saving her. I crawl around Damon’s legs. He tries to stop me, but I’m small enough to slip past him and desperate with grief. I take up the head and pull it to my chest, sobbing. My apartment has been decorated in her blood, in her entrails. There is nothing in view without a spot of blood on it. I didn’t know a dog could bleed so much. I can only imagine the pain he put her through. My sweet puppy who wouldn’t hurt a human being, my horrible guard dog but best friend. She is gone in the most horrible of ways.

I can’t stop the tears from falling. Damon is talking to me, but I can’t hear him. I just stumble through my apartment. Her legs have been left on my sofa, ripped clean from their sockets. Her tail is left in my open tea kettle. When I walk into my room, I see her ruined torso tucked into my covers, sliced open so what’s left of her entrails bleeds all over my bed. I run to the bathroom, still cradling her head, and vomit. Damon is there to hold my hair back, he’s still talking to me, but I can’t register anything he is saying. When there is nothing left in my stomach, he begins to pry Bella’s head from my hands.

“Shh,” he whispers in my ear. I try to latch onto that and not onto the horror that surrounds me right now. I want to be filled with rage, but there is so much sorrow.

“She didn’t do anything,” I sob out, turning Damon. “It hurts so bad. I feel like I’m drowning. I can’t breathe. How am I still breathing? I can’t breathe. Help me. She didn’t do anything.”

The head is out of my hands, and he places it gently on the bed. He moves to wrap me up in his arms. I let out a startled cry realizing there is blood – her blood – smeared all over my shirt. Damon picks me up, sliding one arm under my legs and the other around my shoulders. I turn my head to sob into his shoulder. Closing my eyes, I to try to get the images out of my head, but they are seared into my mind. How am I ever going to sleep in this apartment again without Bella? It’s been tainted. I want to burn it to the ground, burn the sheets, throw out the couch, and melt the teakettle. There is nothing that belongs to me left in this place without Bella.

Damon moves me to his apartment, unlocking the door and heading towards his bathroom. He sets me down on the toilet as he begins to run a warm bath. He pours something into the bath, it smells of lavender and he swirls it around the tub. I’m shivering in my clothes.

“I’ll do whatever I can to take the pain away, I promise,” he whispers as he tilts my head back for a brief kiss.

He starts to remove my clothes, pulling the shirt over my head. He has me stand as he removes my jeans, my underwear, and then he unsnaps my bra. Damon is controlled in his movements; he doesn’t touch me in any inappropriate ways. His hands are gentle, kind, reserved. I’m shivering, feeling myself going into shock. He picks me up and sets me down in the lavender bath and the warm water engulfs me; the sweet scent begins to chase away the smell of death. I can feel my muscles relaxing even though my mind is spinning to the deepest, darkest hole it has ever been in.

Damon gets a large plastic cup. He fills it with warm water and tilts my head back so he can pour it over my hair. He works methodically, doesn’t talk, and I just lie there and try to concentrate on the feeling of the water. There is something else mixed into the water that is soothing, calming my brain down. The tremors begin to stop, and I close my eyes. Damon works his hands through my wet hair, massaging my scalp. The shampoo and conditioner he uses do not have an overpowering odor; they smell like the forest, with a hint of cinnamon. They come in glass bottles, specially made, not something bought from the store. I barely register these observations before my mind meanders on through its confusion; I don’t have time for analysis. He finishes washing my hair and sits on the toilet beside the tub with his head bowed, his fingers clasped tightly together.

When the water starts to get cold, he begins to drain the tub, picking me up out of it and wrapping me in a towel. He holds me close, and I don’t protest. Damon walks me from the bathroom to his bedroom where he finds one of his shirts for me to put on. He goes to get a brush and turns me around, slowly getting all the tangles out of my hair before putting it into a tight wet braid. I wonder briefly where he learned to braid. I look around his room. It is sparse; just a bed and a night table, long wooden trunk with a lock on it. The sheets and bedspread are hunter green. A thought that feels like it’s come from outside my body observes that they match his eyes. He leaves me for only a moment, returning with a glass of water and a tiny pill.

“Take this. You won’t have any dreams. I’ll be right here all night,” he says. “And the pain will go away till morning.”

The pain will go away; those words echo through my mind. I put the pill on the back of my tongue and swallow. There is a bitter aftertaste and I drink more water because it feels lodged in my throat. Damon moves me to place my head on a pillow, bringing the covers in tightly around me as I close my eyes.

“I’m going to make a phone call, and I’ll be right back,” he whispers. He kisses my forehead and disappears out of the room but leaves the door open. Damon always stays in my vision. I can’t tell what he’s saying, but he keeps clenching and unclenching his fist. He paces back and forth, but the image of him is getting blurry. I think of how cold this bed is without my mutt to curl up next to me and the tears begin to come again. My brain is reconstructing Bella as the dog she was, not the body all over my apartment.

Damon hangs up the phone and comes back into the bedroom. He strips off his clothes. Through my growing haze I note they have a couple of bloodstains on them. Generally, I would love to take in his physique, but tonight the pain is too much. He changes into pajama pants but doesn’t bother with a shirt, then slips into the bed behind me. He draws me in close to him. I feel his warmth through the shirt I wear. It is the only thing that feels real.

“I’m so sorry I failed you, Amy,” he whispers into my ear before kissing my cheek.

I want to respond, but whatever was in that pill has hit. My eyes close and I fall into a pit where I feel nothing. There is no pain here, there is no joy. It is just a numbingly fantastic sleep.