My mind is blank. I have nothing left to argue, only a cold and penetrating wish to not kill a man I don’t know. So I just rely on begging. “Please don’t ask me to do this.”
The man who handed me the gun closes his hands over mine. My eyebrows quirk slightly, confused at the motion, but I don’t have much time to think about it. His fingers are cold and firm, like marble.
“I’m not asking,” he whispers. He lifts my arms, and his are made of pure muscle. I press outward with my elbows, but in the end, all I can do is turn my face away. I bury it into Declan’s neck, and his hands fly up to my face to cover it. His fingers spread across my cheek.
The man squeezes the trigger, and my finger is trapped, pulling with him.
A sound explodes. It’s too loud, too final, and my ears ring. My hands go slack. The gun clatters to the floor.
The man’s muffled screaming is gone, replaced by mine.
Their father mutters, “Good girl,” before he releases me slowly, like he’s savoring the moment. I sob into the air before Declan takes me into his arms. He picks me up and cradles me like a baby, shushing me gently in my ear. My fingers tremble against his back like I’m purposefully rapping a beat.
Declan’s eyes are alive with something like pride, and I can see from this close how long his golden eyelashes are, rimmed around his steel eyes. I don’t know how it happens, but my fingers on the back of his neck turn into his lips against mine.
I gasp against his kiss, and he pulls away for a moment to study me, to make sure I’m okay with it. I trace his scar, the way I’ve longed to, and I let myself come undone with his mouth.
He walks with me through rooms until I’m set softly onto the deep-set couch. I pull myself into a ball and sob into my knees. Something drops around me, weight, and I hold it tightly, smelling Rian on it.I see sleeves and realize it’s his hoodie. I grip them like arms, like real human comfort, and only know the difference when I feel Rian’s pliable, warm hand on my freezing forehead.
I hear him like he’s in a cave, saying, “She feels cold.” I know I do.
The father is in front of me, tipping my chin to make me look up at him. He has fading red curls and a face that’s wilted with wrinkles. His stubble sticks out of his face like it’s painful. If he weren’t the evil incarnate that I know him to be, I would think he looks like an older Kellan. His face twists into something resembling a smile, anemic lips lining yellow teeth, and he says, “I meant it. You did good.”
In response, I double over and throw up between his feet.
Then they’re pushing him out, out of the room or out of the house, I don’t know, but he’s out.
Rian gives me a glass of water.
Declan sits next to me while I drink it. I rest my head on his shoulder, not out of familiarity but out of exhaustion, and he leans his cheek against me, trapping me against him. His arm snakes around my waist, and I close my eyes while he rocks me. I feel the vibrato of his words in my head when he asks, “Now you’ve met our father. Do you still want to be alive if it means knowing him? If this is the life you’ll have?”
I feel empty, and the only thought I have over and over is:
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
26
RIAN
Three days have passedsince Caroline was wrapped up in that kill. Three days since she shot that man with trembling hands.
And three days have passed since she said a full sentence.
She barely speaks at all, not even to the kids. Not really. She hums when they talk to her and lets them climb into her lap, but the light behind her eyes has gone somewhere I can’t reach. She’s there, physically, but it’s like her mind is somewhere underwater.
What eats me alive isn’t that she won’t talk to me. It’s how the boys have started watching her the way we do. Cautiously. Like she might break in their hands. They used to crawl over her like puppies. Now they circle her like shadows. I watched Joshua tap her arm three times before whispering, “Mama?” When she finally answered, it was like he’d startled her awake from another world.
She clings to them at night like stuffed animals until they wriggle away, confused. They love her, but they don’t understand what this version of her is. And I don’t either. I curl around her bodyand press my hand to her back while she trembles, whispering that it wasn’t her. That she didn’t do it. That she was just there. That I should’ve done it for her.
But logic slides off her like rain on oilskin.
She jerks away from my touch sometimes. Not always. But enough to feel it like a cut. The rejection stings, even when I understand it. Maybe especially then.
She flinches at loud noises. She folds in on herself if anyone raises their voice, even in play. Kellan dropped a spoon yesterday and she screamed like someone had fired a gun.
She was never built for this. I knew that. I brought her into it anyway.
And some nights, I wonder if letting her live was the crueler option.
