Chapter 21The October sky was a fresco of purples and blacks, reminding him of Harris. Shivering under his flimsy coat, Jude sat on the hotel’s roof, in one of the chairs he’d carved, the very one Harris had complimented months ago. He’d been here for hours, and had it not been so cold up here, he’d have spent the night on the roof, above this city which had used him up. This city in which he’d lost his soul.
For the hundredth time in the last hours, the image of Chimera lying very still on the vet’s table flashed through his troubled mind and he hid his face inside his cold hands and wept like a child. She was gone. His one true friend. She’d died peacefully, looking into his eyes, trusting in him until the very last moment.
He thought of what the vet had said about mercy and saving an
