He pulls the trigger.
The sound is deafening in the enclosed space of the dining room—like the world is cracking in half.
Sharon’s wine glass shatters on the floor.
My chair shrieks backward across the hardwood as I drop low, instinct overriding all conscious thought.
Somewhere above me, someone is screaming—maybe Sharon, maybe Haven—and the smell of gunpowder burns the back of my throat.
Sharon jerks backward, a red bloom spreading across her chest as she crumples to the floor.
Haven screams, grabs my arm, and tries to haul me toward the front door.
But I’ve grown roots. I can’t do anything except hunker low and stare at my mother’s body, at the blood pooling beneath her, at the way her eyes are still open, still blinking, still alive.
“Christ! Sharon!” Dad’s voice cracks. He takes a stumbling step backward, gaping at Ezra in sheer panic. “What did you do? What did you?—”
Then he turns and runs.
“Where you going, Daddy?” Ezra yells.
The second shot slams into Richard’s lower back. He goes down hard, skidding across the marble floor on his stomach.
Haven is yanking at me, but it’s like someone else is controlling my body—and they’ve hit pause.
Ezra ambles toward Richard like he has all the time in the world. There’s a strange calm on his scarred face, like all this yelling and killing has been cathartic as fuck.
Guess he never needed therapy.
He just had to kill our parents.
He stands over our father’s writhing body, watching him try to crawl toward the door. “I’ve fantasized about this, you know? Watching you die.”
He kicks Dad in the ribs and chuckles when our father grunts in pain.
“Wish I’d planned a speech or something.”
Another kick, slowing Dad’s already sluggish escape.
“Guess all you need to know is that I fucking hate you. I’ve hated you every single day of my miserable fucking life. I’d let you suffer as long as humanly possible, but you’ve already stolen enough air from this world.”
He crouches down, pressing the barrel of the gun against the back of Dad’s head.
“Burn in hell, Dad.”
Three shots. I jerk at each impossibly loud crack.
It feels like I’m on a bullet train headed to hell, right behind Dad.
Haven has given up trying to drag me to the door. For all I know, she’s run away. I don’t blame her. If I had control of my legs, I’d be right behind her. Instead I’m forced to stand in place like a plastic army soldier with feet glued to a base.
Ezra stands slowly, his back to me.
When he turns around to face me, there’s nothing human left in his eyes.
Blood glistens wetly on his black puffer jacket, a fine red spray painting his jaw and cheek.
“Think we’ll get a family suite down there?” he says, making no fucking sense. He chuckles when I just keep staring at him. “Hell, bro. We’re all going to hell.”
