Page 53 of Bram

Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop.

“You’re a monster.”

He said nothing, just watched her with the eyes of a man who wanted to argue but couldn’t figure out how.

“I could’ve shot you when I was twelve,” she said. “I should have. I’m sorry I waited.”

She cocked the hammer. The sound was surgical.

The Colonel smiled at her, a soft, pathetic thing, lips peeled back from broken teeth. “You’re still my daughter,” he said. “No matter what you do.”

She didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate.

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m going to do it right.”

She shot him in the face. The round entered just below the left eye, turned his skull to wet sand. He flopped once, spine arching up, and then settled.

I pushed myself up, felt the blood running under my ribs, and took a long breath that almost dropped me to my knees. I looked at her, the gun dangling loose in her hand, her eyes on the body, not me. There was nothing else to say.

She finally looked at me. Not a hint of triumph in her face. Just exhaustion and something that might have been peace, if you’d never seen what she looked like before.

She put the gun down, then dropped to a crouch and just stared at the corpse. She didn’t look away.

twenty-one

Julie

The world went quiet after the shot, and the quiet lasted for almost a minute. The only sounds were the wind riffling through the Joshua trees on the perimeter and the soft, regular tick of the cooling gun in my hand. The Colonel’s head bled out in a way that surprised me: not a gusher, not a spray, just a slow, steady run that blackened the gravel and made its way into the cracks. I watched it spread, trying to guess if the stain would outlast the day or if the sun would suck it dry before I got back. If I got back.

My legs shook, and I let myself crouch, knees apart, elbows on my thighs. The gun—Bram’s—hung loose in my hand. He was on his feet a few paces away, and I could feel him watching me, could feel that rigid, deliberate calculation he always did when he wasn’t sure if the next move would be a kiss or a bullet.

“Easy,” he said.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I really am.” I really wasn’t. I’d not only killed a man, but that man was my father. An abusive father, yes. A horrible excuse for a human being, yes. What nobody around me understood was that the single shot washed away so much of my other pain. It wasn’t gone. It never would be. But I never had to worry about this man touching me again. I didn’t have to worry about him touching anyone.

“It’s over, babe.” Bram put his arms around me. “I got you.”

“Forever?” I asked.

“To the moon and back, baby. To the fucking moon and back.”

The sirens started as a low moan somewhere down Main, gathering up force and volume as they got close. You could always tell the difference between a call for help and a call for control; this was the latter, an operatic shriek meant to clear the roads and warn the world that the law was on its way. My hands didn’t shake, and I counted that as a win, all things considered.

“I’m not letting them take you,” he said.

I shook my head. I’d been a DA long enough to know the process. “It’ll be okay. Just promise me you’ll fucking still be around when I get out.”

“When this life ends, it’ll be with us fucking the morning away.”

He kissed me hard enough to make my nose ache, and my heart skip a beat. His cock surged right there in front of all the club members exiting the building. “Tell me you love me, you asshole.”

Bram smiled. “You love me, you asshole.”

We laughed in pain and continued to laugh until the sound of sirens was upon us.

Three squad cars, Barstow PD. A fourth rolling up behind, County. Lights going but sirens now off, which told me two things: they already knew who I was, and they didn’t expect anyone to be alive when they got here. The lead car pulled up hard, stopping at an angle so the doors made instant cover. Two officers out on foot, weapons at the ready, but not raised. My brain categorized them—Stocky Cop, Ex-Military; Younger Cop, nervous, probably two years out of the academy. I put the gun on the hood of the nearest car before they could ask.

“Hands,” said Stocky, and I lifted them shoulder-high, splaying my fingers like I was about to play a piano.