The first gunshot slams into the rear window, spiderwebbing white impact points but unable to shatter it.
BANG!
The second gunshot hits the driver’s side window. The driver reaches down for the gun at his hip.
BANG!
The third gunshot hits the same exact spot, and this time, it breaks through the glass right as the driver pulls his gun free. His head snaps back in a violently graceful arc. Fragments of bone and brain spray across the front of the car, and then he slumps forward onto the steering wheel. The horn wails in a long, sustained, horrible note that doesn’t end.
The gun falls from his fingers and disappears by his feet.
From the corner of my eyes, Anthony starts stirring awake.
"Run." The word comes out of me automatically. I clamber over Don Leo’s motionless body, grab Anthony’s arm, and give him a shake to wake him up. "Run, peanut. Open the door andrun."
"But Aunt Bella?—"
"Now! You don’t have time!" More gunfire rings out, and I can hear Don Leo groaning, already starting to come to. "Be brave for me, peanut. Be brave, stay low, andrun."
Something in my face convinces him. With a look of determination, he reaches for the door handle, pushes it open, and then he's gone—small legs pumping with each step as he rushes into the chaos.
The relief is so enormous it almost undoes me.
He's safe. He's running. He'salive.
I look at the driver slumped over the steering wheel and my eyes are drawn toward the gun he dropped. Scrambling towards thefront of the car, I reach with all my might, but the gun remains just out of reach.
If I can just reach it—if I can just?—
I strain and will my fingers to stretch longer until I swear I can feel them brushing the metal of the gun.
Five meaty digits clamp around my ankle like a vise, and Don Leo snarls. "Did you think me finished, you little bitch?"
There’s a gash above his ear, blood runs down the side of his face in a thick red stream, and he looksfurious. The theatrical cruelty from before has been stripped away, leaving something rawer underneath. Something honest.
Something that tells me he no longer plans to toy with me, and is going to just skip right to killing me.
I kick him as hard as I can with my free foot. The tip of my heel connects with his face, and meets a temporary resistance for a brief moment before it punctures his eye.
He roars in pain, a high, angry scream that cuts through the car horn's endless droning. His hand releases my ankle and flies to his face. I take my chances, and throw myself toward my door, shoving it open.
For one second, one beautiful second, I think I'm going to make it when I step outside?—
Only to feel his hand close around my ankle again.
I go down hard. Hands and knees against asphalt, and my skin tears from the rough surface. I kick back at him, my heel connecting with something, but he doesn't let go this time. Hedrags me back toward him as he slides out of the car like a fat slug.
Then his weight descends on me.
It's like being crushed under a landslide, and it drives the breath out of my lungs. He turns me over until I’m forced to stare up at his vile face. The pavement is hard and unfeeling against my back as he closes his fat fingers around my throat.
“Die, you fucking cunt!” He screams as he presses me into the ground. “Die! Die! DIE!”
Then, he starts to squeeze.
The horn is still wailing. The world is going dark at the edges. And the last thing I think, as Don Leo's face looms above me with blood streaming from his ruined eye and murder in the other?—
I never told Slava I loved him.
