26
Brynn
A hot streamof air assaults my cheek.
Immediately I understand, like a shark can smell blood from miles away. I haven’t seen Eric Prince in a year, I was never close enough to smell him, and yet somehow I know his scent. Sharp anger, acidic desire for justice.
My worst nightmare. Except, this isn’t a nightmare at all. I’m wide awake.
Terror seizes my limbs. A burning heat assails my thighs as my muscles tighten and bunch. I’m lying on my side on the couch, facing away from him. I don’t know if he knows I’m awake. Surprise is my only friend right now, but I, too, am shocked. I have no way of knowing if my limbs will do as I say when I tell them to.
“Finally,” he breathes the word into my ear. “You fucking bitch.” His voice is too soft for such harsh words. He could be crooning a lullaby to an infant.
I have two options. I could open my eyes and try to talk some sense into him. Maybe if I could make him understand that I didn’t hit them on purpose, that his wife was sick, then maybe—
Silly me.
Sense can only be talked into someone who’s sensible. Eric lost his mind when he lost his family.
Second option, then.
I sit up suddenly, swinging my feet to the edge of the couch and bolting upright. Behind me is the small stone fireplace, the back of the living room. The only way out is past Eric. I lean left, prepared to skirt the coffee table and run when Eric lifts his hand. Extends it between us. My limbs freeze, my breath comes in pants. My brain screams words, so many words, and they are all the same word.
Gun.
Black. Matte. Metal. Capable of ending me before I get the chance to atone for my sins.
I really want that chance.
Eric’s lips curl into a smile. It’s dark and menacing, oozing like a poisonous sludge. He trains the gun on me. I don’t know if it’s cocked, can’t remember if I heard the click. The seconds aren’t passing the same way they were before. They’ve slowed, each one more crucial. My breath feels unnatural, thick and barbed.
And then, in a moment that feels wrong but is actually perfect, I see Amy Prince. Her gaze. Eyes that saw my car, chose it. In my imagination I hear her voice, something I never heard in real life.Do it,she instructs herself.Three… Two… One…
“Go ahead and sit down.” Eric’s voice grates out into the present, snapping my thoughts away from the terrible mess of that morning. He inclines his head to the chair in the corner.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” he says after I’m settled in the chair. My body is ramrod. Left leg bouncing as if a jackhammer is inside it. Placing my hand on my thigh doesn’t make it stop.
From his pocket, he produces two zip-ties.
I shake my head. “No no no no no.” My voice cracks on each word.
He points the gun at my head. “Maybe I’ll change my mind.”
My whole body is rigid. I’ve been numbed to the sight of guns by movies and TV shows, but the reality of it is more terrifying, more paralyzing, than I ever could’ve guessed.
I do as he asks. I think of kicking him in the face when he bends to zip my ankles. I imagine elbowing his back when he tightens the tie on my wrists, but by the time I’ve gathered enough courage to do anything, it’s too late.
He steps back from me. “I prefer not to shoot you right away. Too easy. It’s important you understand suffering.”
Bending at the waist, he sits back on the couch and keeps the gun trained on me. He is more than disheveled. The scruff on his face has grown in patchy, and on his left forearm is the bloody crust of a picked-apart scab. Holding the gun in his right hand, he lifts two fingers from his left hand and rubs them across his lower lip.
“There’s comfort in imagining all the ways I can make you pay. You outsmarted the boys in blue, playing the victim like you did. Lying,” he snarls when he says the word. One finger taps his temple. “But not me. I knew my Amy. She would’ve never done what you said. She loved Samuel. She lovedme.”
I force my breath to slow, and will my heartbeat to moderate. “She was sick, Eric.” Despite the quaking of my voice, it’s buttery soft.Easy does it. Eric doesn’t need provocation. He’s far past that point.
“She was not sick,” he nearly screams. Flecks of saliva fly from his mouth.
Nothing I say will mollify this man. He is out for pain. My pain. He won’t stop until it has been wrung from me.
