Kate knocked lightly on Mullins’s door and waited for an answer. She could feel the eyes of neighbours and local children on her back as she waited for an answer. None came, so she knocked a little louder this time in case he was in bed. She really needed to see him right now, or else she knew she would lose her nerve. There was still no answer, and she tried looking in through the window, but it was impossible to see inside; a thick brown blanket hung over the window to keep in the heat.
Just as she was about to walk away, she saw him turn the corner from Usher’s Quay and come into his own road. She smiled when she saw him, but it dropped quickly when she saw his demeanour and then the blood on him. She ran the short distance to him; he didn’t see her coming and was taken by surprise when she grabbed him, asking what had happened to him. Had he been out all night, had he been attacked by the Dolocher, was it dead? He pushed her gently away as he winced in pain and said nothing but continued on to his house. She followed him, and when he went in, she followed without waiting to be invited.
“What happened to you?” she asked again, but louder.
“I was in a fight,” he said.
“With who?”
“The Ormonde Boys.”
“A gang fight!”
“Yes.” He took off his shirt. There were a few slash wounds that still oozed blood on his back and side. She grabbed a bowl of cold water and a cloth and began to wipe at him.
“What the hell were you doing in a gang fight?” she said, and her anger made her rub more roughly.
“Ow.” He stopped her and took the cloth from her. “I can do that.”
She let go of the cloth and stood back a little. “Why were you fighting with them?”
“They’re helping me at night, looking for the Dolocher.”
“And this is the price you have to pay for it? To nearly get yourself killed and make yourself useless to anyone?” She could hear the tears in her voice before she felt them in her eyes.
He looked at her, and he had the confused look of an animal on his face. He didn’t understand why she was so upset.
“If you go looking for the Dolocher with wounds all over yourself and tired from fighting, he will kill you for sure,” she cried.
“I’ll be ok.” He dabbed at another of his cuts, this time on his arm.
“You won’t be ok!” she said. “I know I asked you to do this, but now I am asking you to stop, please.”
“I can't stop until it’s done!” he shouted back at her, and there was an immediate silence in the room. He looked away first and went back to his wounds.
“If you keep on doing it, you’re not doing it for me anymore,” she said.
“It’s only now that I am truly doing it for you, Kate,” he said in a serious voice, and he looked at her. “Before, I was doing it for revenge, out of anger, but now I’m doing it because I want you to be safe. I need you to be safe,” he said.
She stepped forward and took his hands. “You can make me safe without killing yourself,” she said, now crying more than ever. He took her into an embrace and pulled her against him. She could feel the heat of his naked, strong torso against her, and right now she did feel safe.
“If I don’t kill it, I can never be sure you’ll be safe.” This was said with the voice of someone who was final in their own mind, who had made the irrevocable decision that would guide their life from then on.
“What will we do when it’s gone?” she asked, submitting to his will, knowing that she could do nothing in the face of that fog that she was now enveloped in as well.
“Anything you want.”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“Does it involve me?” he asked, and she could feel his body tense up for the rejection he thought might come.
“That’s the only thing I do know for sure,” she said. She felt that strong embrace once more, and she squeezed back as hard as she could.