Reality blurs.
Cracks.
And shatters.
Quentin walks over to me, and I’m numb as he pulls the crop from my shaking hand and replaces it with the grip of the gun. Icy cold cuts into me as he lifts me to my feet, wraps my fingers around the gun, and then raises my hand, until the gun is pointed right at Evelina’s horrified, tear-streaked face.
She’s sobbing. She’s telling me he’s real, she can see him, I can stop this.
She’s wrong.
I don’t think I can.
“Do it,” Quentin snarls. “You’ve spent your life building up to this!Seizethe throne that you were born to, Grandson! There’s onlyyouand the Syndicate! There isno roomfor distractions like her.”
My hand holding the gun trembles and then drops to my side as my head slowly shakes.
“No,” I hear myself choke. “No, I won’t?—”
Fire erupts over my face as the crop lashes across my cheek, splitting it open. I go stumbling back and fall to the ground, the gun clattering across the floor.
Evelina screams and lurches from the chair. Then she cries out, her head snapping to the side as the back of Quentin’s hand cracks across her mouth.
The back ofmyhand…
I see Quentin calmly pick up the gun.
The barrel presses to my forehead, and I gently close my eyes.
Maybe this is the only way to save her.
From me.
“You told me once you were willing to do whatever it took to lead the Syndicate,” Quentin murmurs quietly. “That you would doanything.”
“I was wrong,” I hear myself say.
He exhales. “Then I fear you are not fit to lead this organization.”
Blinding pain and light explode behind my eyes as the barrel of the gun slams to the side of my head. It hits me again and again, wet, sticky blood splattering my face and dripping into my eyes as I drop a hand to the floor to steady myself.
Evelina is screaming my name and sobbing. I look up just as she lurches from the chair again. I watch in stunned, slow-motion horror as Quentin brings his hand back and cracks the gun across her face, sending her back into the chair.
I watch him bring the barrel back up and point it between her tearful eyes.
That's the moment when it clicks into place.
When the shattered parts of me strewn like broken glass across the floor fling back together, like a tape being playing in reverse.
Puzzle pieces find their places.
Fractures meld together.
The roaring in my head dulls, and suddenly, I have utter clarity.
He is not we, is he?
You finally see the truth. No, motherfucker, he’s not.
