It skids in a clean line to my feet.
“Take it,” Harry hisses through clenched teeth.
I don’t think.
I move.
My hands shake as I grab it. It’s heavier than Wyatt's pistol, but close enough. I scramble up, muscle memory guiding my grip. Thumbs stacked. Elbows soft.
I level it at Clarissa.
Her eyes widen. “Cassadie…”
Every memory crashes through me—my father dying, her smile in the hallway, the guards with guns, the months I spent hiding, starving, terrified, the life I barely rebuilt.
My arm throbs sharply as if it remembers too.
She did this. She made me bleed. She made me run.
All of it because of her.
My finger finds the trigger. The gun steadies in my hands.
Breathe. Sight alignment. Front sight focus.
Wyatt's voice in my head, calm and certain.
The world narrows to a single, impossible choice.
Clarissa lifts her chin, recovering her poise with terrifying speed. She laughs sharply. “You won’t shoot me. You don’t have it in you.”
She drifts closer. “You never could stand up to me. Not when I replaced your father’s staff. Not when I replaced him. You couldn’t even save him?—”
Squeeze, don't pull.
My breath evens out. The trembling stops.
"Just like you can’t save yourself,” she says, her lip curling in a sneer.
I adjust my stance. Widen my feet.
She’s three steps away now. Still talking. Still certain.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” My voice doesn't shake. Not anymore.
Clarissa tilts her head. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” I say. “Because someone taught me how to fight back.”
Confusion flickers across her face, along with the barest hint of doubt.
Exhale on the shot. Let the recoil happen.
Clarissa sees the shift in my eyes, the stillness in my hands. Her smile falters. “Don’t. You don’t understand what you’re doing, Cassadie.”
“I understand exactly.” I tighten my grip, both hands now steady. My finger rests on the trigger. “And for the last fucking time, my name’s not Cassadie. It’s Sadie.”
Clarissa pales. “You?—”
