The subject disappeared -- one moment so close, the next pulled up and away by -- arms? -- Elliott -- dizzy -- Bitten?
Ellie staggered backward on feet that felt loose, as if they might roll out of their sockets. Her body seemed to be moving of its own accord now, and there was a scalpel instead of a needle in her hand. She wasn't sure how, because she couldn't remember picking it up, but there it was. Eloise had killed the infected before. She would have to do it now, too, after she crossed the thousands of miles between herself and Elliot. Far... Everything is far away... Sound, light and pain. Like doves in the sky.
Then there was the sound of a gunshot: enough to wake her mind, the blur of static buzz at the edges of her vision. Rory, thought Ellie. Rory is here. Newly alert, it was easy to see her closeness to Eli, to the subject: not a world away, but feet that could be crossed. She lunged forward, realizing her ability.
She also realized, a moment too late, what had happened to Tom.
Somehow the blur of movement to her right evoked an instinctive response. Ellie turned with a swipe of the elbow, smashing it into the chin of the new leaper. Impact felt like nothing at all, though she saw it -- it really happened -- and she saw the scalpel, too, half-embedded under Tom's cheekbone. Ellie pulled hard to retrieve it, but the momentum was too much; she stumbled backward again, dizzy, and Tom stumbled after her.
Hi Tom... So sleepy now. I don't want to kiss you, Ellie thought, pushing weakly at his face with her hands. His nails tore at her skin as he gathered her close. The scalpel punctured his cheek, the lips of the mouth attached at her collarbone before Ellie pushed her forearm into it instead. She was oddly separate from the action, like a dream in third person. That's all this was. It was true there were teeth in her flesh -- she knew this as well as she knew that she had flesh -- but Ellie felt nothing at all, not even as they struggled and Tom tore at her cheek and eye socket with his fingers.
The scalpel flashed again, driven deep into his throat; Ellie pushed, imagining the nerves she could sever, the neat arteries she'd drawn in her notebook. It made her smile through the static in her bleeding eye. Soon there was a little pop -- another -- the release of pressure, and her assailant drew backward with a visceral shudder. Ellie pushed harder. A gush of blood tumbled into her hair, her mouth. Then Tom died.