I.

For the rest of the world, the story begins with a bird painted in blood on a warehouse wall.

II.

For Eric, it begins with a question: If there is a bridge between corpse and ghost, how does God decide who crosses it?

III.

And if Eric builds a ladder of bones to the sky, will he find the woman he loved again in heaven?

IV.

He hunts for the men who took the only life that mattered; they took that life with savage pride Eric thinks he can never understand.

V.

He smiles, though - a real smile, not this one he has painted on - when they beg for his mercy.

VI.

One of the men puts up a chase, and the adrenaline is pleasing, the catch marked by a shock of crimson on wet grey stone.

VII.

Over and again Eric places the photographs in order, tracing a relationship, only now the last picture is not his bride-to-be in her gown, but an autopsy print he stole from a crime lab.

VIII.

He has leads on her killers; all vow silence, but everything can be broken violently, and tongues are easiest to shatter when they are frozen to ice.

IX.

Shadows have a logic all their own; he holds them to him like blankets.

X.

"She wasn't yours!" he screams once, kicking at the wall, wondering whether he is screaming at the man bleeding out near his feet or at the voice inside his head.

XI.

He wishes he had never shaken her blue eyes and shock of long hair into existence on the Polaroid.

XII.

If I'm dead, he wonders, blade to his forearm as his eyes lose focus, why am I not empty?

XIII.

If I'm dead, he concludes, blade splitting skin with pressure that makes him crush his lower lip between his teeth, I will not suffer my veins to run full.

XIV.

Loving, for her, was the catalyst to move beyond a dark and painful world into the afterlife; for him, it is only a reason to stay.

XV.

There are many steps between this loft and the cemetery:

Even fewer, though, between heaven and hell.