“I won’t be going there any time soon, but you’re probably right.”
He tried to push me back to the ground, but my feet held firm. Feeling like I had no choice, I grabbed his hand with the gun and pulled it away from my body. With my other hand, I pressed my fingers into the gash adorning his face, digging the heel of my hand into his left eye.
Charles screams. I put all my weight into turning the gun away from me. Beneath my hand, I could feel the soft flesh of his eye and the blood coating my fingers as I continued my assault on his wounds.
Anger rose inside of me like a geyser shooting up my body, filling me with an unfamiliar rage. I screamed as I fought for my life.
I lost my mother. She was stolen from me like a thief in the night.
Then he took my sister, my best friend, the only person who knew me.
Now, he has taken Parker—the one person who showed me that I was deserving of happiness.
All he did was take from me.
Take. Take. Take.
I heard a sickening squelch and pop as I pushed with all my might. Charles roared in pain, returning his focus to the gun in his hand.
My whole body ached, but at this point, I didn’t care about the pain. I let him take from me long enough. I may not survive this, but he would feel my rage. He would not leave here unscathed as he did two years ago. He would remember me this way every time he looked in the mirror.
He shifted the gun towards my abdomen again, inching closer and closer to my body. I released his face, pivoting my body away from the barrel of the gun and using the opportunity to grab the gun with both hands.
A black and purple bruise had already started to form around Charles’ eye. Blood coated the left side of his face, and his eye was swollen shut.
“I’m going to love emptying this clip into you. Tell Celeste I said hello,” he growled before slamming his head into mine.
I’m stunned, but my body reacts instinctively, pushing the gun away from my body and towards him just as a whip-like crack fills the air.
I was already falling toward the floor when I realized the gun had gone off. Smoke filled my lungs, and I struggled to breathe. I expect to find Charles standing over me, but the barn is eerily quiet beside the hiss and crackle of the flames eating away at the structure.
The searing pain I imagined, never came. I forced myself to my feet.
Charles was on the ground clutching his chest with the gun just mere inches away, he stretched out his hand to reach for it when he saw me.
My feet close the distance between us, and I pick the gun up, pointing at him.
Blood is trickling from his ears and mouth. He no longer looks like the blond, polished finance guy. His face is misshapen and covered in blood, streaking his golden locks.
A loud boom rang out through the barn as a beam collapsed, taking a quarter of the ceiling with it. I knew I didn’t have much time here before the whole place came down. My chest felt like it was on fire, and my body wanted to break down.
My mind tells me that I need one more moment, one that my future self will appreciate. I don’t care if I have the last word, but I will have my say.
“You had a family, people who loved and cared for you. But you destroyed it.” Tears gathered in my eyes as I looked down on the man I once called a friend, my best friend.
“You’re a sick man. You are a poison to this earth, and you will not be missed. No one will mourn you. No one will honor you with kind words or fond memories. The only person who still loved you died in this barn, and you will go with him. This is the end you deserve.”
He coughed and clutched his chest, his face stuck in a grimace.
I turned around searching for Parker, eager to get to him. Nothing more needed to be said to Charles.
“Don’t leave me here.” His voice was sad, almost mocking. “You’re all I have left.”
His words made me turn around. They brought me back to that day, the one that apparently changed our lives forever. If I hadn’t asked him to stay, maybe life would be different. At the time, I thought I would never heal from losing my mother, then I lost Celeste, and she proved me wrong.
Charles didn’t deserve my pity.
“Fuck you.” Were my parting words before I aim the gun at his chest and shoot.
