The man who just committed murder is still standing there. Tall and broad-shouldered, dark hair pushed back from his face, those winter-grey eyes find me and I forget how to breathe.
“P-Please!” I find myself sobbing. “Please don’t k-kill me.”
Why am I begging? He’s going to kill me anyway.
But I keep talking because maybe if I remind him I’m a person, maybe if I make him see me as human instead of just a witness, maybe?—
“I won’t tell anyone. I swear. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything. Please.”
It’s all lies. I saw everything. I know his face. I could identify him in a heartbeat. But desperation makes liars of everyone.
He doesn’t respond. Just stands there with his gun loose in his hand, blood dripping from his knuckles, staring at me with those empty eyes.
Move. You have to move. Get up and run!
I try to stand but my legs won’t cooperate. They’re shaking too hard, muscles turned to jelly from terror and the impending adrenaline crash. My head is pounding from where Antonio slammed it against the wall earlier. Everything hurts and I’m so tired and I just want this nightmare to end. But not like this. Not with a bullet in my skull.
The killer takes a step toward me, and I press harder against the wall like I can somehow phase through it and disappear.
“Please,” I whisper again. “Please.”
He raises his gun. Points it directly at my face.
And I make a choice. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die with my eyes open. I’m not going to cower. I’m not going to beg for mercy from a man who clearly has none.
You want to kill me? Fine. But you’re going to remember my face.
So I force myself to meet his eyes. To stare right back at him even though every instinct is screaming at me to close my eyes and pray for it to be quick.
His finger rests on the trigger. Time stretches. Seconds feel like hours. I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, fast and loud. Can hear gunshots still echoing through the mansion as his men finish killing everyone else.
This is it. This is how I die.
My vision is blurry from the head trauma, but I keep my eyes locked on his. Grey eyes that look like storm clouds. Cold and merciless.
But then something changes. His gaze shifts. Travels down from my face to my torn scrubs, to the bruises forming on my arms, to my bare feet covered in blood that isn’t mine. Then back up to my face.
For just a second, just a heartbeat, something flickers in those dead eyes. Something I can’t identify. Something that might be recognition or rage or something else entirely. His jaw tightens. His grip on the gun shifts.
He’s going to do it. He’s?—
Then unexpectedly, he lowers the gun.
I stop breathing completely.
“Disappear.” His voice is rough. Like he doesn’t use it much. “Before I change my mind.”
W-What?
I stare at him, unable to process what just happened. He’s letting me go? Why? Why would a man who just murdered someone in cold blood let a witness walk away?
It’s a trick. It has to be a trick.
But he steps aside. Clears the path to the door.
“Go,” he says again. Harder this time. “Now.”
I don’t wait for him to change his mind.
