Green Desert - Chapter 7.5.5 - Sétıpímo

“Do you believe me now?” snipped the girl before she left, abandoning me, leaving me alone with a crazy woman, a knife to my throat.

“Vata,” I whispered, “please.”

“O Névazhíno, please hear these words from Your humble servant.”

Oh, Vuzhí and Pétíso! “What do you want, Vata?”

She kept chanting. “You have forsaken me, but I still honor You. Please accept this offering as a token of my everlasting devotion.”

“Vata!” I hissed. The knife cut deeper, damn close to my carotid artery. She was past reason. I had to try religion. “This is sacrilege. Névazhíno honors all life. He abhors murder of any of His creatures, humans included.”

She kept murmuring, rocking back and forth slightly, the knife pushing me back in rhythm, my head pressed against Vata’s belly. Maybe I could push her backwards, fall with her, catch her knife hand. I started slowly raising my right hand.

Vata stopped rocking, tensed, the knife penetrating my larynx. “Stop.”

I stopped. My neck burned. No talking. No moving. Pain. No thinking. O Vuzhí, if You’ve ever granted me anything, please grant me safe passage from this situation. I beseech You!

“Mrs. Kılímí, drop the knife.” A man in the doorway, gun leveled at Vata’s head. One of Fírí’s guests. The other one and the blonde stood behind him, ruining his silhouette. “If you don’t drop the knife, I will shoot you. . . . So please, drop the knife.”