“Then, you’re a complication,” Pete says, almost apologetically. “You’re a messy ledger. If you can’t contribute, then you’re a liability.”
Sam shifts, hands wrapped around the gun like it’s a habit rather than a weapon. He steps towards Emma and there’s a moment when I think he’s going to shoot her.
I hold my breath.
Instead, Sam places the firearm in front of Pete with the kind of deliberate calm that makes my bones go very cold.
Pete takes the gun as if taking a glass of water. He lifts the weapon, hovering it between us.
“So, you’re going to shoot me?” Emma says.
Pete shakes his head. “No, shooting is a last resort.”
“Far too messy,” Sam adds.
“And there’s already been far too much blood to clean up tonight,” Pete says. “This is just to keep the order.”
Pete directs the gun at me.
My body turns to stone.
Then Sam moves.
He closes on Emma with no theatrics, a shepherding motion that has no tenderness. She has little time, backing into the kitchen worktop as he wraps his hands around her throat so tightly, with a motion that is not sudden so much as inevitable. His hands are steady and small and far harder than I had imagined. Emma’s hands scrabble at his grip, nails raking the skin of his wrist. She gurgles, a horrifying, wet sound.
“Sam—no—” I find my voice, and it sounds as if it belongs to a stranger. I look at Pete, who keeps the gun firmly aimed at me.
Sam’s jaw works. His face does not change in any way that shows what he is doing. The room shrinks to the two of them: Sam’s hands around her throat, Emma’s fingers in the air, wild and useless.
Pete watches, inscrutable, as if this is a negotiation and he is intently taking notes. Emma’s legs kick, and for a moment I see that she is still fighting—still thinking survival in a way I have no grace left for. Her eyes meet mine once. There’s a plea in them that is not aimed at me but at the life that used to be possible.
“Stop!” I roar and the word cracks like a whip. I want to move toward them because movement is the only thing I can own, but my legs feel like meringue with the gun pointed at me.
Sam’s grip tightens—cruelly, without mercy. “It’s cleaner,” he says, and his voice is the same flat thing he says when he tells me to reboot a laptop. “Quicker.”
Emma’s nails find his forearm, but it’s all in vain. He leans in and the room shrinks to the sound of someone trying to breathe through a sack.
Then she’s still.
Her hands fall, slack. Her face turns away in a way that makes me think she could be asleep, but she’s not.
Sam releases her as if setting down a tool. She crumples at his feet like a thing constructed only for a purpose that has finished. He steps back and looks at me—calm as a surgeon wiping hands.
“Done,” he says.
Chapter 63
TOM
Emma is dead.
The room is too quiet for how violently she just left it. Her body is still on the floor, eyes half-open, mouth frozen mid-plea. I can’t look at her—can’t look away either. My brain keeps trying to fix it, rewrite it, un-happen it, but no version ends without her lying there like that.
I don’t even realise I'm shaking until I hear my own voice, raw and broken. “You didn’t need to do that! You didn’t need to kill her!”
Pete sighs like I’m the one being unreasonable. “Tom, come on. Don’t be dramatic.”
“Dramatic? Youkilled her!” I shout, voice cracking.
