Chapter Fifteen

My fingers were frozen, mud caked under my fingernails and the cast on my right arm. My knees were soaked through with melted ice and dirt. It was snowing, hard and fast and angry. The wind was whipping my hair and clothes around my body like my own person tornado. I felt like the only person in the world.

I brushed against plastic, and closed my fist around it, pulling a bag out of the gaping hole I'd dug in the ground with my bare hands. It was one of many I'd made in the backyard of JJ's mother's house.

This was where she'd buried the gun. I was the only person alive who knew it was here. I'm glad JJ wasn't alive to see how far I'd fallen.

I unzipped the plastic bag and sat back on my heels, pulling the revolver out and turning it over in my hands. It was small and silver, with a pearl handle and a long barrel. It was kind of beautiful, in a terrifying sort of way. I blinked away snowflakes and watched the way the light glinted blue off the metal. It looked wrong in my filthy hands, caked in dirt with blood drying around my fingernail beds.

I stood, wiping the mud from my fingers onto my blood-stained jeans. My arm was screaming, and I had no meds with me. I tucked the revolver into the back of my jeans and swallowed the bile rising in my throat at the thought of what I was going to do. My skin itched and crawled, and I shuddered.

Sam's smile, slow and predatory, flashed behind my eyes and my heart slowed. A trickle of ice ran down my back, my shoulders squaring.

It was time to get this over with.

I didn't bother knocking when I made it to Sam's house. I twisted the doorknob and it went easily: unlocked. He was the sort of arrogant bastard who wouldn't even lock his front door.

The gun held its own certain heat in my hand, like it was a living thing. My fingers didn't shake, and my heart was calm as I stepped over the threshold, the door swinging on its rusty hinges.

My eyes swept the living room: it was empty. I stalked forward a few steps and peeked into the kitchen; also empty. There were fragments of broken bottles strewn about, and it stank of pot and dirty, stale laundry. The trashcan was overflowing with fast food wrappers and empty cigarette cartons, and the stack of dished piled in the sink was precarious at best.

A heavy thud sounded to my left, and I swung in that direction, leading with the barrel of the gun. Sam stumbled down the stairs, eyes heavy-lidded and red-rimmed. His face creased with confusion when he saw me, and then he saw the gun.

I shoved the door shut behind me, memorizing the way that the blood drained out of Sam's face. I never wanted to forget the sweet taste of satisfaction that rose in the back of my throat as he eyed the gun, looking for all the world like he was going to shit his pants. I had to squash the urge to giggle like a sociopath.

"What the fuck, Max?"

"Don't say my name." My voice was quiet fury, simmering at just below a boil, all urges to giggle gone. "Don't you dare. You have no right."

He put his hands up, fingers splayed, eyes wide. He wasn't looking at me. His eyes were trained on the barrel of the gun like he was staring into the face of God.

"Put that thing down, okay? We can talk about this."

"What? Like we talked about things that night?"

"I'm sorry, okay—"

"Shut up." My vision flared red, pulsing around the edges. Rage was building under my skin, hot and enormous.

"Tell me what you want, Max. I'll do anything. Just put the gun down."

"I said don't say my fucking name." My voice was suddenly loud, the anger coming to a boil. I was screaming, growing closer and closer to hysteria. The bad things he did to me were rising up in me, the images flashing faster and faster. My face screwed up into a grimace as the pain swelled inside of me.

I stepped closer, and he curled in on himself like a wounded animal. I had never in my life wanted to hurt another human being like I wanted to hurt this pathetic excuse of a man. I wanted him to suffer like I'd suffered.

"You want to know what I want?" I swallowed and it hurt like glass on the way down. "I want you to feel some fraction of the fear I feel every. Damn. Day. From the time I wake up, to the time I fall asleep all I feel is this. Afraid." I crossed the small distance between us and shoved him with my free arm. "You have no idea."

He faltered and went down on one knee, his arms coming up to cover his head. I could see now that his whole body was shaking and sweat was beading up along his hairline and upper lip.

"I want you to be dead, Sam, so I can feel safe again." I pulled the hammer back on the gun, loading a bullet into the chamber with a deadly click. "I can't exist in the same universe where you're alive." I pressed the barrel of the gun against his temple and a switch flicked somewhere inside of me, my bravado failing. I felt sick all of a sudden with confusion; my head wanted this, knew it had to happen, that it was the only way. The human part of me was screaming, begging for me not to do this, to just walk away.

I closed my eyes and saw my own face reflected back at me from a dirty mirror, two lines of powder white in front of me and a decision to be made. Innocence to be lost. My finger twitched on the trigger, indecision making my knees weak. Sam was sobbing. I wasn't breathing.

The front door opened.

I opened my eyes.

"Max."

Fang was panting, soaked through with melted snow. The wind howled at his back, rocking the door back and forth. He stepped in and closed it, eyes never leaving mine. My hand had started to shake.

I pushed the barrel of the gun harder into Sam's skin, and he whimpered, looking desperately towards Fang. "Get out of here. You don't have to see this."

"You don't have to do this." Fang reached his hand out to me, and I saw that it was steady. "This can be over right now."

I shook my head, gritting my teeth. "You don't understand. It will never be over. I have to do this."

"You don't," he said simply. His eyes were clear and calm, his mouth a neutral line. "You don't."

I bit my lip and looked at Sam. His eyes were clenched shut, his hands covering his mouth. He was still crying.

My breath was a dry rasp in my ears. Pain was radiating up my arm from where I held the gun, my broken bone struggling to maintain a steady grip. My head was pounding in time with my pulse. My stomach was clenched and cramping with panic because I hadn't accounted for this, for these feelings, and I wanted to be sick.

"Max. He's not worth it."

I blinked, hard, trying to clear the spots from my vision. "But he—"

"He's not worth it." Fang's voice was soft and pleading. I wanted to let him wrap me up, smooth away the panic. "Come back to me. Stay with me."

My face crumpled, along with my resolve, and my arm fell to my side, the gun burning hot against my leg. Sam cried out and slumped over, his shoulders shaking with his cries. Tears poured down my face as I moved across the room. The gun fell from my hand, and it was like a weight being lifted off my chest.

Fang and I crashed into each other like the waves of a tsunami. He was breathing hard, and the whoosh of the breath in his lungs was like a lullaby. I pressed my ear again his chest as his arms came around me, fingers tangling in my hair.

I pushed and pulled breaths in through my teeth, burying my face in the crook of Fang's shoulder. His hands were gripping the back of my shirt, his fingers curled into fists in the fabric. I exhaled, my entire chest shuddering with the movement. I knew I was crying but I couldn't stop. Neither of us heard the heavy footsteps behind us. Neither of us thought about the abandoned gun.

Then, Fang tensed and yelled. My world tilted as he shoved me away from him, my legs getting tangled up in each other and coming out from under me. I hit the wall, my head cracking against it with a sickening thud. My mind was still hazy with pain medication and confusion, and everything was moving too fast and too slow and terror was welling up somewhere deep, deep within me.

There was a pop and a flash and a spray of warmth. My ears rang and the room smelled like it was on fire. Everything was silent, like someone had hit mute on the scene. I blinked in slow motion, my voice dying in my throat at the furious glint in Sam's eyes, the gun smoking in his shaking hand. Fang sank to his knees, his arms curled around himself like he was holding his insides together. He looked up and his dark eyes met mine, and all I could see was shock and anger reflected back at me. His lips, pale with pain, pale with the loss of blood, mouthed the word 'Run.' The sound never reached my ears and my limbs were frozen, trembling. The sight of the red seeping between his fingers locked my joints up and short-circuited my brain. It was the same red that was splattered across my shirt, beading up on my fingers.

I looked up at Sam, hovering over both of us, and closed my eyes as the barrel of the gun burned a hole in my head, a stark period to this sentence; to my life.