The gunshot exploded into the wall between them, driving Edward further back into the fireplace that housed his bed and Kim backwards from the blast, rolling away and scrambling to her feet as Edward—recovering from the initial shock—rose to meet the drunken young man's advance with a weirdly threatening expression incongruous to the pale, scarred face. Jim rounded to point the gun directly at him, heedless of the fact that Edward could very well slash at him at any moment.
Kim was momentarily stunned into inaction. How quickly the mood had changed! In her fear that Edward had been killed, shot by the police officer, she had all but forgotten her headstrong and vengeful now ex-boyfriend. In a single moment of clarity, she understood.
"I'm going to lose you to that? He's not even human!"
She had once said to Edward that you couldn't make Jim do anything. That included making him stay away. Proud and arrogant to the core, Jim would never be able to accept the reality of his girlfriend preferring a monster instead, instead choosing to see only what served his purposes. An accident on Edward's part became an attempt to purposely hurt her in his eyes. Jealous of what he perceived to be a threat to his manhood, he now set out to rid himself of that very threat.
He was going to kill Edward.
Sudden rage galvanized her back into action.
"Don't!" she yelled, rushing up to jerk the gun up and out of Edward's path. Jim's trigger finger instinctively tightened and the resulting shot roared up into the planks of the crumbling roof. Kim managed to knock the weapon out of his hand—a portion of the ceiling began to collapse—he threw her brutally out of the way, spinning her to the floor as the broken wood and masonry crashed to where they had been struggling, though out of fear for her safety or to prevent her from getting in his way she didn't know. Somehow she suspected the latter.
What had she even seen in him?
Normalcy. Looks. All the comforts of a typical suburban high school boyfriend, though she never guessed his vituperative streak until much later. When Edward had come down from his Frankenstein's castle…
The force of Jim's shove stunned her briefly; hauling herself painfully to her knees, Kim saw that Edward had taken the brunt of the collapsing roof and now, like herself, lay nearly insensible on the floor, feebly attempting to get up. Her heart jammed up against her ribs and she shook her head to clear it, trying to get up to help him. Jim, with all the spiteful self-confidence of the scorned suitor, strode right up to him and delivered a swift, vicious kick to the ribs. Edward went down like a ton of bricks, gasping in the dust-choked air.
"No!" Kim cried as Jim reached purposefully for an old fire iron that stood next to the ancient fireplace. "Jim, stop!" Ignoring her, he slammed the heavy rod full force into Edward's back, sending him reeling to the floor before he even had a chance to crawl to his knees. "No!" she cried again, even though she knew that her pleas were useless. With Jim, they always had been. She had to do more than just plead.
She climbed unsteadily to her feet as Jim delivered blow after crushing blow to Edward, filled with more rage and hate and mortal fear than she thought possible for a human heart to hold. I've got to stop him before he kills Edward, she raged silently, Edward's weakened gasps for air inflaming her further. Sighting the first big piece of wood she saw from the broken heap on the floor, Kim picked it up and, with a furious cry, smashed it into the back of Jim's head just as he was about to strike Edward again, tackling and pinning him to the ground before he could react. Unthinkingly, she snatched one of Edward's hands from where he lay and pinned one of the razor-sharp blades to Jim's throat before he could try to overpower her.
"Stop it," she snarled, trembling, delicate features twisted into a gargoyle mask of fury, "or I'll kill you myself."
For a heart-stopping moment they stared at each other, Kim hardly able to believe the position she found herself in. She had just said she would kill, for Edward, if necessary. And she would. With all her heart, to protect him from those who sought to do him harm, she would go against every suburban moral and belief she had adhered to her entire life. Edward had opened her eyes with his quirky, silent nature, made her to look beyond the restricting chains of suburbia, into a world of innocence and beauty she had never known existed.
Jim wanted to take that world away from her.
She saw his realization of her new standpoint dawn in his eyes, and his drunken savageness was quick to boil back into existence. Shoving Edward's hand away, he slapped her and rocked back to kick her pinning weight away before she could even blink, catapulting her past the fallen roof planks to crash to the floor. Edward, restored to his senses during the brief lull in the fight, quickly rolled to his feet and made directly for Kim, concern etched deeply onto his scarred face, his eyes mute testimony to his feelings.
"Hey! I said, stay away from her!" Jim bellowed angrily, brandishing the fire iron, believing to the very end that he was doing Kim a favor.
Edward spun, his face undergoing a terrible transition from worry to cold anger, and without missing a single beat plunged the longest blade of his left hand into Jim's stomach.
Kim couldn't even scream.
His expression still frozen in that same look of fierce finality, hand still buried in Jim's stomach as the young man stumbled backwards with a blank look of horror, Edward matched him step for step and pulled the scissor blades out just before their momentum tumbled Jim out of the high, narrow window next to the converted fireplace and into the overgrown courtyard below.
Feeling as though she'd been doused in liquid nitrogen, scarcely able to breathe, Kim dashed to the shattered window where Edward still stood like a gothic avenging angel.
As one, they moved to look out, Kim still in a state of shock from the sight of the last symbol of her old ways dying at the hand of the childlike innocent—now not-so-innocent—standing beside her. Down below, Jim's body lay spread-eagled surrounded by shards of glass that winked like pools of silver in the clear winter moonlight. He wasn't moving.
The sudden stillness, the impossible silence save for her own ragged breathing, became a deafening roar in Kim's ears.
Edward turned away first, wearing the same expression she'd seen him wear countless times—when he'd done something wrong and knew it. The same he'd worn when she found him home from the police station. It all but broke her heart, if there was any left to break. Torn between the window and the silent, hunched figure as the far-off yammering of the neighborhood mob grew closer, torn between hugging Edward, running from Edward—ye gods, he had just killed!—Kim finally jerked back to the window. The mob had just encountered the front gates of the mansion. It would be a minute or two before they saw Jim.
Staring at Edward as he stared off into the distance with infinite sadness and guilt in his eyes, no longer a cold murderer, Kim quickly turned him to face her. She was on the threshold of tears, in agony, hardly knowing what to say, how to act, or whether to feel anger, pity, fear, remorse, or any other number of equally confusing emotions that she didn't even have time to consider. Edward only looked back at her solemnly with his clear, candid gaze, and when she wavered on the edge of indecision again as the voice of the mob grew louder, he tilted his head a little as if to study her face better and murmured a single word: "Goodbye."
Goodbye?! she protested silently. I've only just found you! But she understood his reasoning, painful as it was. He could never leave the mansion again, or face retribution for his crimes; even though they both knew the burglary had been a setup by Jim and he had just killed to protect them both, no one else did—nor would they understand. And she could never return to the mansion or risk revealing that Edward still lived. And what would the neighborhood think of her? She would doubtlessly be shunned like Edward, and her family as well, in extension. How could she bring that upon them?
She looked at him a moment more, at the pale face with its delicate tracings of scars and wild tangle of jet-black hair that were suddenly more dear to her than lie itself, swallowed, then hesitantly reached up and kissed him lightly, the tears beginning to flow at last. Lingering on her tiptoes, cheek still pressed to his, she knew the truth before it left her lips as she whispered raggedly into his ear, "I love you."
Kim never saw Edward's eyes close briefly in acceptance, though she did feel his heart—Jim was wrong, he is human—quicken ever-so-slightly as she held him close. When she drew away his eyes, as always, told her everything he wanted to say but could never bring himself to do so out loud. They stared at each other for a second that lasted an eternity, each seeking to memorize the other's face, before Kim finally turned and ran, knowing she would have to face the crowd that was gathering.
Grief of several natures engulfing her, Kim fled down the sepulchral main staircase of the Inventor's mansion, hearing as she came to the bottom the horrified screams of the mob outside—first one, then two, then several, crescendoing in volume. They'd seen Jim. Her mind in a whirlwind, she ran to a cobwebby, long-neglected shelf and pulled off of it the first object she saw, then headed for the front entrance, easing out from behind the massive wooden door.
The assembly fell silent as she came into view at the top of the landing.
"I-Is he in there?" someone asked, the apprehensive masculine voice abnormally loud in the stillness.
"He's dead," Kim said after a long pause, her voice ringing dull and raspy in her ears. "The roof caved in on him. They killed each other." She didn't have to mention Jim's name, who lay less than five feet away from her at the bottom of the short flight of stairs.
The mob was now absolutely quiet, staring at her in shock and disbelief. Kim wanted to claw them all for their fake concern, their phony tears. They had never failed to exploit his talents before, or to automatically shun him on the basis of vicious housewife gossip. They didn't care, they never had. He had only been a novelty to them. How could she have lived in such an unfeeling society for so long? And to think she had been just like them…
"You can see for yourselves," she continued, looking down at the object she grasped and then holding it up for all to see. "See?" she demanded finally, a note of desperation and bitterness creeping into her voice.
She held up a single scissor hand.
There were a few horror-stricken motions amongst the crowd, but still silence; then one lady said, "I'm going home," and turned to leave, the others slowly following suit.
Kim hated them all.
She watched them go, lowering the scissor hand with an air of unmistakable finality. When she was sure they were all gone and no one remained to observe, she let the steel contraption fall to the stairs and dashed to what was left of Jim, feeling Edward's eyes watching her from above as she knelt carefully amidst the broken glass and picked up his wrist, searching for a pulse. She had to know for sure—appearances were often deceiving.
How well I know, she thought bitterly. There was still a slight chance he could have survived the fall.
There was a pulse there, weak and faint, but definitely there. However, Kim instinctively knew that Jim would not live to move beyond the spot where he now lay. More tears tracked lines down her face. She had hated him, at the end, for the cruelty and insensitivity he had shown her and Edward, but that didn't negate what had come before. Before Edward. She had been artlessly happy then, perhaps as naïve and innocent as Edward himself.
Beside her, there was the most infinitesimally small of movement as Jim weakly opened his eyes. "Kim?" The query was no more than a breath of air. A small trail of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. Kim grasped his hand in both of hers, hardly able to look at him and face the cloudy accusation she knew he had to have in his eyes.
"I'm so sorry," she breathed, and held his hand until his eyes rolled away from hers and became still. Then she reached over and gently closed them.
She could sense Edward watching her the entire time.
Slowly rising and with great difficulty, Kim turned her back on her dead ex-boyfriend and, pausing only to retrieve the spare scissor hands, re-entered the mansion.
She found Edward waiting for her where she had first found him, nearly hidden, sitting on his bed of straw inside the fireplace with his myriad newspaper clippings.
"They're gone?" he asked in his quiet, childlike voice, watching her with his eyes that never missed a thing.
Kim could only nod, staring at him with barely concealed grief and longing—to lose him so soon…
"You're hurt," he said, nodding at her right shoulder.
She started, noticing for the first time that the low collar and part of the sleeve of her dress were stained scarlet. "It's nothing," she replied quickly, gingerly lifting the blood-soaked fabric to inspect the flesh underneath. "Just a scratch." It was, in fact, a small but nasty gash—caused, she suspected, perhaps by a nail in one of the boards she'd fallen over.
"Is it my fault?" Edward asked plaintively, guilt and shame written on his face, and Kim's heart wept.
"Oh, no," she soothed, dropping to her knees before him and taking his hands to reassure him. "I fell, that's all. You didn't hurt me."
Jim pushed you, she could almost hear him say. He hurt you. But he remained silent, letting his face do the talking, as was his wont. "Are you okay?" she asked to break the silence. Jim had given him one hell of a beating.
He took a minute to reply, looking, she realized, down at her hands holding his cold steel shears. "Yes," he said, voice growing even quieter. "Why did you come back?"
The question caught Kim off guard. They both knew why she hadn't left, but neither could give words to voice it.
"Razorblades would do anything for you."
"Why did you do it?"
"Because you asked me to."
How could she look such simple devotion in the face and then just abandon it?
She found she couldn't even do that; she looked away, averting her eyes, for Edward's gaze was a little too uncanny in its all-knowingness to give her peace of mind. Not that she had any, anymore.
Edward seemed to understand, for his next words completely changed the subject. "I'm sorry… about Jim…"
Kim looked back at him quickly, tears filling her eyes again as her heart gave a painful jerk. She realized she might never fully get over Jim's passing, not in such a manner. "I know," she murmured, "I'm sorry, too," and leaned forward to slip her arms around Edward in a gentle embrace. She felt him stiffen, then relax slowly, returning the hug but carefully holding his scissorhands away from her, just as he had done a short time ago in the Boggs home. It felt like ages—no, centuries. This time, though, he held her while she cried, providing silent, steady support while she poured out all her pent-up grief and frustration. He knew he was partially to blame for it—after all, he'd just killed her boyfriend—but she didn't seem angry at him, and certainly wasn't acting as though she were afraid…far from it.
"You did what you had to," she whispered into his chest when the tears began to subside. "I forgive you."
Perhaps it could have been avoided…perhaps if Jim hadn't been so quick to let his rage and jealousy cloud his judgement. What Edward did, he did in self-defense. He, too, had been angry, but she saw that Edward had seen no other way out. Maybe there hadn't been. But if things had been different…?
Kim mentally shook her head. There was no use in wondering what might have been.
The piercing wail of a siren interrupted their reverie, and the attic room was suddenly painted in fitful patterns of blue and red. Kim slowly released Edward to get up and once again peer from the shattered rectangle of the window as more voices drifted up from below. An ambulance crew had pulled up outside the gate, alone save for a single police escort, to deal with Jim's remains. She recognized Officer Allen, the black man who had fired his gun into the air as a decoy to allow Edward time to escape, as the driver of the police car.
She watched silently, much the same way Edward had watched her, as the paramedics loaded Jim's body onto a stretcher and wheeled him back to the ambulance without ceremony, sliding him into the back and shutting the doors. Behind her she sensed Edward coming forward to join her, carefully resting the flat edges of one scissor hand on her unhurt shoulder.
"What about the other one?" a paramedic asked the police officer as he and his co-worker moved to get back into the cab of the ambulance. "Isn't there a body in the house, too?"
Allen shook his head, and for a moment—though Kim was nearly sure she wasn't visible from the shadows—he seemed to look up directly at her. He said something she didn't quite catch that apparently appeased the paramedics, for they climbed back into the ambulance and pulled slowly away. Allen remained, staring at the crumbling mansion and what lay within, before finally turning to leave. The only sound was the crunching of tires over pebbles.
There will be a funeral, Kim thought numbly. I'll be required to go. The prospect of having to face her suspicious, gossiping neighbors—and Jim's parents, who would no doubt blame her as well for this—sickened her to the bone. She literally didn't know if she'd be able to do it.
Hoping now to delay the inevitable, Kim turned back to Edward, hardly caring that the motion caused the blade of one steel finger to slice the back of her shoulder. His face was oddly calm and composed, yet his eyes were filled with unspeakable sorrow. "Will…will you be okay, up here?" she stammered, unsuccessfully fighting to choke down yet another torrent of tears, grasping his forearms just above the scissor contraptions that passed for his hands.
Edward nodded, once.
There was a short silence, during which Kim's mind and heart waged war with each other. "I'll miss you," she said at length. "I don't want to leave you."
He smiled very briefly—such an expression looked alien to his face because it was something he rarely did, but to Kim it transformed him, altering the lines of his colorless face until he almost, but not quite, looked liked a normal person. "I'll miss you too," he replied, very softly, his scissorhands making soft noises as the blades rubbed against each other in agitation. "But you have to go." He was very tense, as though he longed to say something but couldn't.
"I'll never forget you, Edward," Kim choked, reaching up to hug him one last time. "I love you…" She kissed him on the cheek, lingering longer than necessary, long enough for him to lean into the embrace; ran her fingers once through his unruly hair, then reluctantly let him go, quickly turning for the stairs. If she stayed a moment longer she would never be able to leave.
"Kim!" Edward called after her, and for a moment she was transported back to that sunny afternoon when he had called her name in the exact same way, seeing her walking home from school. She flinched at the memory of her callous actions, turning around to look back at him. One clumsy appendage was extended towards her as if to keep her at the edge of the threshold.
He didn't say anything—he looked incapable of any further speech—but Kim knew what he wanted to say. Her heart went out to him, and the crushing knowledge that she could not stay, no matter how badly she wanted to, all but tore her to pieces.
She became aware that her hand was also outstretched, as if they were on opposite sides of a chasm, reaching across the unfathomable depths to hands that could never again touch.
Smiling through her tears, she whispered, "I know," then turned and stole away for the last time down the stairs, out into the overgrown and neglected majesty of the courtyard—knowing that in short order the whole would be the beautifully tended garden her mother had spoken of—through the gate and down the zigzagging mountain path towards home.