“I don’t think I care about that anymore,” she mumbles and cocks the gun, eyes narrowing as she takes her aim.
Fear and despair take over as I try to find another way out of this. “Deanna, please. You don’t have to do this. We both came up in the streets, right? We just took different turns, that’s all. You can still have the life you want.”
She is close to pulling the trigger. I can feel it in my bones: the chill of death itself eager to embrace me, to rip me from this world. The words roll off my tongue loudly and unexpectedly. “I’m pregnant, Deanna!”
Deanna freezes, hand in the air, her grip tight on the gun’s cold handle. A wandering ray of sunlight captures the steely glint from the barrel as a subtle tremor sets in.
“You’re pregnant?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper.
“Yes. I just found out. One of them is the father, so whatever your beef is with me, it shouldn’t involve my unborn child. Please, you don’t have to do this.”
She sighs deeply. “You’re having his baby.”
“We didn’t plan for any of it, okay? Please, Deanna.”
“You can’t have his baby,” she says.
The gun rises just as the front door is smashed wide open. I scream as chunks and splinters of wood fly into the hallway, and the fractured door falls flat on the floor. The room is suddenly filled with men in black jeans and Kevlar vests. Too many automatic rifles are pointed at Deanna. She doesn’t move an inch.
She didn’t even register the speed with which the grand finale came crashing into her life. She still doesn’t register the change in the balance of power.
And I remain still, bound to my chair, crippled with fear, her gun still aimed at my head.
“Raina,” Alex’s voice emerges from the chaos. He’s one of the men in black jeans and Kevlar. One of the men holding a deadly weapon.
Vincent and Max are here, too. The tableau soon comes into focus as I begin to identify police badges and uniforms joining them in the spacious, cold living room.
Relief is just within my reach, yet still so far away.
“Deanna, I’m going to need you to put that gun down,” Vincent calmly says.
He’s aiming right at her head, and judging by the size of his weapon, it won’t make a small hole either.
Deanna slowly looks at him. “Why?”
“Because it’s the only thing you can do to save yourself right now,” he replies. “It’s over, Dee. You know it. We’ve got police in here with us. The whole place is surrounded. Jeremy is currently in cuffs, giving his statement, confessing to the whole plot. You’re done.”
“Then why put the gun down, if I’m done?”
“Because if you kill Raina, you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison,” Vincent says. “Provided the bullets I’ll put in you first don’t kill you. You’ll experience agony and misery, day in and day out. You will lose track of the days. You’ll get maybe an hour of sunlight now and again. But if you put the gun down, the charges will be different. You might be out in a few years.”
“A few years?” She sounds faraway, like she’s about to check out.
Max is moving slowly behind her.
“Yes. You’ll be able to start fresh. It’ll be from scratch, but it’ll be better than nothing,” Vincent says, distracting her from what’s happening behind her.
“Will you wait for me?” she asks quietly, desperately.
For a moment, he hesitates. “I’ll wait for you.”
That’s a lie. We all know it. I think Deanna knows it, too, deep down.
“Put the gun down, Deanna. Don’t make this worse,” Vincent says. “Come on. It’s done. You’re not getting any money out of this. You’re not getting out of here either. But you can at least get out of here alive.”
For a moment, she’s tempted to agree. Her gun slowly descends. “But then she gets to have you. It’s not fair.”
The gun goes back up.
