Starting over with intent to finish this. Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer-I own nothing
PROLOGUE
BEFORE
The gun was cold in his hand, like it was made of dry ice, and everything in him screamed to drop it and run. Run from the gun, from the bound man kneeling in front of him, the life than had been set for him since the day he was born.
Still, Zachary Goode didn't drop it. The chilling feeling in his hand anchored him, made him feel real in his oblivion, and he held onto it with everything he had.
"Zachy, sweetie, are you strong enough for this? Or do I have to do it?"
His mother's cloyingly sweet voice made his head snap up. He didn't know what he had been staring at before—the gun? The man he was supposed to shoot, the one with a sack over his head?—but her sudden appearance in his consciousness was enough to snap him out of whatever trance his panic had trapped him in.
"No," he croaked, his throat coated in sand paper. "I'm fine."
But it was a lie. Most of the things he had ever told Catherine, his mother, had been a lie.
Every muscle in his body was cramping with tension, coiled like a spring, and Zach knew that he was bound to explode at any moment. His chest rose and fell at a rapid pace, his heart pounding at his temples, hard and fast, and Zach knew he was going to have a panic attack if he wasn't careful.
I have to do this. I have to do this. I have to do this.
Across the room, Zach's mentor watched him. Even though Joe Solomon's face was passive as ever, Zach saw the nearly imperceptible worry in his eyes. The unspoken reminder; the silent reminder—don't do this. There's no coming back.
"Zach," Catherine cooed again, her voice lined with a growl. It was her entire life summed up in one voice; the clear, crystalline bell, the lurking beast. "Get it done. Prove yourself."
What does this prove?! Zach wanted to howl. That I'm as much of a monster as you?
The words never left his throat, though. He tightened his grip on the gun. It was raw with sadistic possibility—it reminded him that he existed.
He was tired of oblivion. He wanted to feel something, even if it was crippling remorse.
He wanted to know who he was, even if it was just a human with the ability to make another human stop breathing.
It wasn't a good identity, but it was a start.
And with trembling fingers, Zach pulled the trigger.