Buzz.

Buzz.

Buzz.

I blinked hard twice, trying to rehydrate my contacts. I'd been staring too long again. I realized I had a fork in my fingers and looked down at yet another meal I'd failed to eat. A late lunch this time. Meatloaf and potatoes, a well-meaning attempt at American nostalgia to coax me. The heavy metal clinked against the china as I gave up and pushed the plate away. We were supposed to be at another obnoxious holiday gala tonight, even though it was the first week of December. Stellan had vetoed it. His rationalization was that it was better to create intrigue than worry. No one fought him.

Buzz.

My phone lit up on the table next to me and I eyed it cautiously before unlocking it. Stellan.

You're lucky you're home.

This is awful.

What do you think about this one?

And it was followed with a picture of a Bulldog on a skateboard.

Tears flooded my eyes, blinding me. I squeezed them closed, causing a steady stream

to drip down my face and off my chin. They plunked down onto my phone. Burying my face in the palms of my hands I tried to scoop back up all the pieces I kept splintering into. Forcing a deep breath in I wiped my cheeks and then shook the tears off my hands. Sniffling I picked my phone back up, dried it off and tried to think of something funny to reply back with. But as the seconds kept ticking by all I could come up with was no.

I frowned at my phone, wracking my brain for something to add. All I could think of was that they tended to die early because all the inbreeding had given them health issues. But that was way too dark. They snored. I flexed my stiff fingers to type it when his bubbled popped up again.

How about this guy?

It was a white and light brown Whippet in full sprint across an open field. It seemed like the kind of dog you'd have for a day. Because the first time it saw freedom it was going to bolt. None of us would have time to take care of a dog that high strung, and I couldn't take another loss like that. I knew I had to come up with something more than just no this time. He was trying. He'd been trying. For days. But I just felt lost, and trying took so much effort.

No.

So no slow or fast dogs. Got it.

Sorry.

I'll be home soon lyubov' moya.

I locked the phone and shoved it across the table far away from me, making it clatter into the dishes. Then the door to the dining room opened and I knew who it was. Elodie. She slid across the table from me and sat there in silence for a good minute before I looked over at her. Part of her lip was pulled into her mouth somehow making the dark mauve color of it look even more alluring, exotic. She surveyed me for another minute in silence before I exhaled,

"Yes, Elodie?"

She stood, walked over to the bar, plucked a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses from behind the counter and set them on the table. Then she opened the credenza and pulled out a stack of salad plates, then a stack of saucers. She contemplated the dinner plates but then shook her head setting the two dozen pieces of china on the table next to the vodka. She went to a cabinet over and pulled out a white tablecloth and then spread it wide across the table before placing all her items inside and tying up opposite corners with tight knots. It looked like that satchel on the end of the stick you saw on covers of Huck Finn.

"Are we running away?" I asked. She smiled,

"Sort of."

Then she grabbed the satchel and moved toward the door that led outside to the grounds. She held the door open for me and I crossed my arms over my chest and settled back into my chair.

"Let's go," she tilted her head toward the outside. I had to admit my interest was peaked. She'd managed to get through the fog better than anyone had in days with this bizarre behavior. But there was no way I was leaving. I frowned at her.

"You come willingly or I'll make you go. And you won't like my methods."

"Hard pass," I ground out.

"I'll ask nicely one more time because you look so miserable. It's very ugly on you by the way."

"Charming as always," I sighed.

"Right," she shifted the satchel in her hand and dug into her pocket to produce a small vial. "I hope I didn't make this too potent."

She took a few steps toward me and I stood up and stormed past her out into the freezing grounds. I wasn't in the mood to deal with Elodie, but I had even less of a capacity to fight her off. She covered the space I'd created pretty quickly and crunched ahead of me out to the main path.

The estate garden was surrounded by ornate wire fencing separating the vegetables from the herbs. Most of it was bare ground now from the cold snap we'd had. I wondered how much of this garden just rotted away. We rarely ate in this house. I hoped someone was getting good use of all this. We cleared the garden and crunched through the gravel of the path that lead toward the hedge maze. I stopped. I was not about to get lost in that thing with Elodie armed with china. For all I knew she wanted to re-enact the Shining and use plates instead of a chainsaw. As if hearing my thoughts she called back to me,

"Not the maze. Keep following me."

We passed the garage, all the cars shining and a few of the drivers nodding toward us as we passed, lounging on the metal bistro set they sat in when waiting to be called up. I had no idea where she was going. I knew there was a lot of this place I still hadn't seen. Like where all the bodies were buried. My hands started to shake again and I purposefully and forcefully shoved the look on Lydia's face deep into my chest, covering her with a layer of darkness I hoped would keep her hidden for a little longer. She could torment my dreams later, I wanted at least a couple hours of sanity while I was awake. Elodie pushed back some overgrown brush and we emerged on the other side to a huge open field and some kind of contraption next to another black metal bistro set with table. Elodie set the satchel on the ground, undoing all her knots and shook out her hands. It had to have hurt, that was not a light little picnic she was carrying.

The days were so much shorter now and as she set up the bottle and shot glasses onto the table and fiddled with the contraption next to it I looked out across the field in admiration. It was like something out of a Jane Austen novel. An endless sea of billowing grass, tall cypress trees at the property line in the distance and the occasional grouping of brown bushes. You could only hear the wind as it rustled the nature around us. A wave of peace flowed through me and I admired the bright blue of the sky slowly starting to darken the higher you looked. My exhale of wonder broke as a white cloud in the chill. It would be dark soon. I was glad for the oversized wool sweater I had on, but I knew we'd both be frozen before this was over. I was awash in appreciation for Elodie bringing me here, for forcing me to observe the beauty around me instead of the darkness in my own head. Then there was a woosh and a burst of echoing gunfire followed immediately by the shattering of glass.

I threw my hands over my head and ducked into the grass at my feet letting out a muffled scream of, "what the fuck?"

"Magnifique!" Elodie yelled out into the field and then walked over to the table and poured herself a shot. Setting her glass back down she looked over at me, still huddled in the grass and smirked,

"Your turn."

She reached behind her back and pulled out another gun. My gun. My mouth went dry. My hands started to shake. I forced myself to my feet and started to back up, shaking my head and fighting back the tears of anger and the panicked breaths building in my chest.

"What the fuck are you playing at?" I seethed at her. Without even acknowledging my obvious discomfort she set my gun down and then reached to her stack and loaded a plate into the contraption next to the table.

"When you're in Keeper school," she started as she adjusted the plate. "Or in my case secret Keeper school." She pulled back on some lever and then flipped a latch, nodding at her work. "They teach you a mantra to help get you through all the murder and mayhem so you don't lose your mind."

I stopped backing up, watching her carefully, the wind whipped through our quiet field making both our hair blow across our faces. She pulled her own gun back out from its holster and examined the clip before shoving it back into place. Her eyes met mine from across the divide and I gave her a small nod giving in.

"Drink it, punch it or fuck it." She flipped the lever on the contraption only a second before her gun was aimed at the salad plate spinning up into the air like a reflective frisbee. An incredibly expensive reflective frisbee. Right as it hit the apex of its arc Elodie squeezed off a shot and the plate exploded into a thousand pieces in the sky, raining back down onto the field as the gunfire dissipated out across the property. Nodding, satisfied at her hit, she moved back over to the table and took another shot of vodka.

"I'll let you put together which ones Stellan and Jack use," she said with a grimace as the vodka burned her. "But personally I always preferred punch it...well...shoot it." She reached down and grabbed another plate, loading it into place and held out my gun again. "Let's figure out which one is yours."

It was too much. Too soon. It had only been two days, three hours and seventeen minutes since I'd executed my sister in front of a room full of people. With the very gun that Elodie was patiently holding out toward me. I couldn't tear my eyes away from it, or the consistent wave of nausea and horror that filled me as my reality slipped away and I was once again materializing in the basement as…

"Avery," Elodie gently said. I blinked a few times, the call of a bird overhead mixing with the wind through the grass around us, and it began fading. I lifted my gaze to hers expecting to see the hard, annoyed, disappointed face Elodie always wore around me. But it wasn't there. Instead, I saw the girl who'd sobbed into Jack's shoulder, who had chain-smoked on Collette's balcony, who had struggled to keep up with us in Valencia as she muddled through all that had happened in Russia. And in that moment I knew. She got it. More than Stellan or Jack ever could. Her first execution had only been a couple of months ago - not when she was 12. It was a different experience, a different kind of compartmentalization.

The tears poured down my face, but I bit my tongue so I wouldn't let out the audible sob. She nodded, over and over again, continuing to patiently wait for me. It took me a few moments but I reigned it back in and wiped at my face, moving toward her. I was afraid of touching my gun, afraid that if I did I'd seize up and actually lose it. But she closed my hand around it and with a few pats moved over to the contraption and said,

"Tell me when."

I took in a deep breath, my shaking hands unable to aim the gun very well and was instantly flooded with the memory of Stellan and me on the beach in Greece. Stabbing that rack of ribs over and over and over again until it finally didn't repulse me anymore. This was the same thing, wasn't it? I would have to use this gun again. Soon. Over and over again. I had to get past this. I had to learn how to do this to save myself. No - to save my family. To protect them.

I took another breath, my hands still shaking and nodded toward her. With a woosh, the plate went soaring into the air and I squinted at it squeezing off a shot that missed completely. I tried to get it again on its decent but missed, the plate crashing to the ground and slipping into the grass. Elodie moved over to the bottle and poured me a shot.

"Typically you only take a shot when you hit it. The point being focusing aim during inebriation of any kind. But today I think you should just drink no matter what." She handed me the shot and I threw it back without a moment of hesitation. The vodka burned and sloshed in my empty stomach. As Elodie loaded another plate I felt it warm up my arms and spread across my belly.

"I thought you did this with shotguns and clay pigeons," I nodded toward the machine. Elodie shrugged,

"Isn't this more fun?"

I laughed and was rewarded with a rare, genuine, smile from her. She put her hand on the lever and waited and I rose the gun again, still shaking, and called out,

"Pull."

And it continued like that in mostly companionable silence. Pull. Fire. Miss. Vodka. Reload. Each one my hands shook less. Each one my mind cleared more. Each one I let myself sink into the predictable, comforting rhythm and the building warmth through my body as the vodka took effect. The sun started to sink in the sky, lighting up the field in a glorious golden light that caught on all the pollen in the air. The grass shimmered as the wind blew through it, the heavy scent of heather swirled around us, a flock of birds called down to our antics as they passed. It was magical. I was drunk. And we were about to run out of plates. But I was finally numb enough that everything else had melted away.

"Pull!" I yelled out, following the plate with my gun and squeezing off the shot at the perfect moment. The plate shattered in the sky, tumbling to the ground like falling stars. Elodie and I both shouted in surprise and I bounced toward her, wrapping her in a tight hug that she gave back just as fiercely.

"Now I've seen everything," Stellan drawled behind us and we turned, still hugging each other to look at him. The wind rustled his hair as he grinned at us. I held onto Elodie tighter, leaning my head onto her shoulder as we watched him regarding us. I didn't want to let her go. If I did this blessed reprieve might shatter, and I didn't know if I could recover from a crash like that. Not when I finally felt normal. Not when I'd managed to lose track of the timer in my mind. Elodie slung one of her arms around my hip and let out an indignant sound in her chest,

"Should have known you'd come ruin all our fun."

"He is a fun killer, isn't he?" I laughed and Stellan's eyes raked over me and then the significant dent we'd made in the vodka.

"Gemma sent me to investigate where all her Waterford china disappeared to." He smiled at us. Elodie let out another annoyed grunt at him and stumbled a little as she turned us back toward the machine. That's when I realized we were probably way too drunk to be using firearms. Maybe we were lucky Stellan had shown up.

"One plate left," Elodie called out to us as she reached down to grab it. She loaded it into place and set the leaver. We both pulled out our clips and cursed,

"Empty," Elodie groaned, reholstering.

"Empty," I confirmed setting my own gun down on the table, picking up the next shot, the liquid sloshed a little on my hand and I put it up to my mouth to suck it off as we both looked back at Stellan. The most peculiar look crossed his face, something akin to nostalgia and bewilderment before he shook his head and reached behind his back to pull out his own gun. Elodie didn't even wait for him to adjust. She pulled the lever and the plate shot up into the darkening sky. I almost lost sight of it as it soared toward the stars and then we heard a hit and shatter as it fell back to the ground. I closed the space between us, passing the shot to Stellan as Elodie clapped behind me. Stellan threw the shot back neatly as I heard Elodie rattling the vodka bottle and shot glass behind me. Then I was suddenly covered in the table cloth as she threw it over my head.

I laughed and pulled it down, wrapping it around my shoulders as an oversized scarf. Stellan passed the shot glass over to Elodie and she slammed it down on top of the other one, the clink echoing out into the field in front of us.

"You didn't happen to bring the golf cart did you fun killer?" Elodie smiled up at him. He nodded and we both let out sighs of relief. It would be a pretty brutal walk back with all this vodka sloshing around inside us. Elodie shoved my empty gun into the back pocket of my jeans as Stellan started back toward the path. I was surprised not to feel that wave of nausea come over me that had happened every time I made myself touch the gun over the last couple of days. Elodie tugged on my sheet, holding me back from following Stellan for a few beats and then leaned toward me to whisper,

"You'll have to tell me tomorrow which one worked."

I looked over at her, the world spinning a bit and scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. But then it drudged up from my muddled thoughts. Punch it, drink it or fuck it. A sly smile pulled across my face as we both looked toward Stellan holding back the brush for us, annoyed to be waiting. I let out an appreciative hum back to her and then whispered,

"Tempting. But I think I take after you."

"Good answer," she laughed and leaned her head onto my shoulder before we stumbled through the grass toward our waiting golf cart chariot.