I didn't want to look because I already knew. Who it was and what he had.

Bruce turned first, ever the protector. He placed himself firmly between Jack and Selina where she still knelt, clutching Isis to her chest.

Pam and Harvey stood their ground, but there was a tremble in Harvey that he seemed unable to control. It became obvious this wasn't the first time he'd stared down the barrel of a gun.

That's when Jack spoke again. "Harley…" my name slithered off his tongue. "I'm hurt. I'd call this a betrayal."

I still didn't want to look at him, but Pam was rolling her eyes, so I whirled around in record time in hopes of distracting him from that.

Jack was sporting his typical disheveled look. His shirt only tucked in halfway at the front, his pants stained with dirt and grease, hair slicked at the sides but wild up top…this was business as usual for him. Unfortunately, Jack's 'usual' struck a deserved fear into the hearts of most people in Castle Rock. Jack with a gun was another story altogether.

My heart was beating quickly, and loudly. I remember worrying that maybe Jack could hear it. I was terrified, but I didn't want him to know. Didn't want to appear that weak in front of friends that I'd led out here. Lead to their deaths, maybe.

Pam was the only one of us who didn't look as though she was about to wet her pants, and I think that bothered Jack.

"How'd you get all the way out here, Pammy?" he asked, a chuckle in his tone, as he focused both his attention and his gun on her. "Broomstick?"

"Legs," she countered, bluntly. "These ones here." She pointed them out. "The ones that God gave me."

Jack raised a thin eyebrow. "You're still a bible thumper? Even after that doctor failed to fuck the evil out of you?"

My heart stopped. We all knew never to go there.

But Jack wasn't one of us.

"It's a figure of speech, Asshat," Pam replied, almost without skipping a beat. I say 'almost' because her voice shook more than before.

Jack's lips spread into a wide grin. He liked this. Feeling control. Over me, yes, but also over Bruce, Pam and Selina. They were the only ones who ever stood up to him in school.

He took a step towards Pam, and Bruce quickly adjusted, moving to protect her now, before Jack shot at his feet and Bruce had to jump high into the air.

"Don't move, Wayne," Jack told him, dark eyes flashing. "I'll shoot."

Bruce obeyed, but I could tell he was angry. Angry and scared. His chest heaving with adrenaline and emotion.

"Take your hat off." Pam was once again his target.

"No."

"I'll shoot, Princess."

"No."

"Pam, just do it!" it was the first time Selina had spoken since Jack arrived, and her voice was strained with desperation.

I had never seen Selina Kyle afraid before, and maybe she wasn't afraid for her, but she was definitely afraid for Pam.

When it was clear Pam still had no plans of folding, Jack changed his tactic. "Listen, Witch, either you take your hat off, or I'll convince you the way they did all those bitches in Salem."

Pam had the gall to cross her arms. "How's that?"

Jack moved in a wide circle around them, threatening each of us with the gun individually, before he bent down near the fridge and reached into a sack he must have stashed there. What he pulled out was a can of gasoline, and it was all I could do not to scream at Pam that there was a gun in the bag at her feet.

But I stayed silent. I was afraid Jack would take the gun if he knew it was there.

"They didn't burn witches in Salem," Pam said, as Jack came closer with the gasoline. "That's a myth."

He kept the gun pointed at us while unscrewing the cap with his free hand. "Then let's re-write some history."

It all happened very fast after that.

And it ended with a gunshot.

Believe it or not, none of that happened on the worst day of my life. No, the worst day of my life was 4 years later.

It was hot that day too, though we stayed inside so the heat wasn't as intimate.

I sat on Pam's bed, my hands twisting in my lap as she flitted about, placing her already folded piles of clothes neatly into her suitcase.

I'd known this day was coming for 6 months now, but I still wasn't ready for it. There was really no way to prepare.

"I wish you didn't have to go so far away…" I mumbled, almost hoping she didn't hear me.

But she did. She always did.

"Wellesley isn't all that far," she assured me. "But…" she paused, her hands still in her suitcase.

I looked up, puzzled when she didn't continue. "But what?"

"But I…I've been thinking…" I could tell it took a lot of courage for her to look at me in that moment. "Maybe it doesn't have to be any distance at all."

I was confused, and my expression seemed to communicate as much.

"I just mean, I'm sure there are diners in Massachusetts, Harl," Pam explained. "Ones that would be happy to employ you. You could—I mean, we could be together. Somewhere we don't each have a million secrets buried. I've already put in an application for off-campus housing, that way—,"

"Pam, Old Man Pennyworth is set to leave me the diner."

"There will be other—,"

"Pam."

"What?" her voice shook in a way I'd only heard once before.

"Red, I'm not the type of girl you need."

That statement evidently came as a relief to Pam, whose body and face relaxed into what was almost a smile, her hand coming up to adjust her hat so that the brim wouldn't bump my forehead when she knelt in front of me. "Type? What type? All I need is for you to be you."

To level with you all, this wasn't the first time we'd had this conversation. Or one similar. She'd first brought it up to me the day her acceptance letter came in the mail, but we'd together passed it off as a sort of joke. Or, I had, at least. It was clear now that she hadn't ever seen any humor in the proposal.

"That's not what I mean," I told her, on my way to choked up. "I mean I can't help you, Pam."

"I don't—I don't want your help," She laughed. She actually laughed. "I want you, Harleen."

I felt a single tear drip down my cheek. "And I can't help you with that."

She left on a train the next morning, one that traveled on the same tracks we'd once let guide us.

"If I leave here today, Harleen, you'll never see me again. That's a promise."

It felt like more of a threat at the time, but I think she meant it as a final opportunity.

One I didn't take.

I can now say from experience that watching the love of your life walk away from you, personally promising it'll be the last time you'll ever see her, is just a terrifying as staring down the barrel of a gun.