Tabula Rasa(68)

More than ever, I saw him as a wild animal trying to live inside an artificial habitat. He was a predator who didn’t belong here in our world. It wouldn’t matter if he was ever caught and put in jail. He was already caged just by the constraint of trying to blend with society, to look normal.

I stood in the middle of the hotel bedroom while steam from Shannon’s shower poured out of the bathroom. I stared at the gleaming gun on the bed. He’d removed the silencer.

I felt at that moment, that it was me or him. It had to be. I wasn’t sure which outcome was worse.

I didn’t think, even after everything, that I could pull the trigger to end myself. And if I killed him, here, now, in this nice hotel, I’d go straight to prison unless I could convince them it was self-defense. A credible story started to unfold in my mind. I would tell them I was that missing girl. I would make them remember. He had kidnapped me. I took the one opportunity I had to free myself. I had to do it, don’t you see? I had to. It was me or him.

I picked the gun up and pointed it at the bathroom door in time for Shannon to emerge from the mist.

“What are you doing, Elodie? I thought we trusted one another.” His voice was calm and steady, and I knew he wasn’t even a little worried I’d shoot him, which only made me want to pull the trigger more. I inched my finger closer to the small lever that would end him.

“Do you even know how to use that gun?” he asked. “The safety’s on. You might want to take care of that.”

I was afraid to look too closely at the gun, afraid Shannon would rush and tackle me. And then what? I flicked the safety off with my eyes still on him, the barrel of the gun still pointed at the center of his chest... the chest water was dripping off of down into the folds of the towel secured around his waist, while he stood serene. Confident.

“Is it hot?” he asked.

“What?”

“Hot. Is a round chambered or do you need to rack the slide? You don’t know, do you?”

I didn’t. And I wasn’t sure how to find out. I could just pull the trigger and if nothing happened, then I’d know.

“What’s your plan after you shoot me? You want to go to prison? Haven’t you been in enough of those lately?”

“I already figured that out. I’ll tell them who I am. I’ll tell them you were holding me prisoner. They’ll find all your weapons. They’ll believe me.”

Shannon nodded. “Very good. And the questions? The media? I thought you didn’t want that.”

“I’ve got my memories. I can handle it now.”

“Can you?”

My arm was starting to feel weak from holding the gun up, so I steadied my grip with my other hand.

“I don’t think you can pull the trigger. You don’t have it in you. You already proved that once tonight while I cleaned up your mess.”

“I was protecting you.”

“Great job,” he said. The sarcasm dripped off him as he stared bluntly at the gun. He sighed. “Well, do it if that’s what you want.”

Did he have no self-preservation instinct? I knew he did. He wouldn’t have been so careful, so meticulous if he didn’t care about his fate. But I knew why he wasn’t troubled. We both knew. I couldn’t shoot him.

I turned the gun on myself, and for the first time since this drama had started, Shannon looked scared.

“Elodie, point the gun back at me,” he said urgently.

“So you know I won’t shoot you, but you’re not so sure about whether or not I’ll shoot myself.”

And then it happened. Shannon cried. They were silent stealth tears creeping down his cheeks, but I knew he felt them drip down and fall off his face.

“I can’t lose you, Elodie. You’re the only thing human I have to hold onto. If I don’t have you, then I don’t know what anything feels like. I need you with me. I need you to translate all the things I can’t feel.”

“What good could that possibly do? You couldn’t even process my guilt over killing an innocent person.”

“I’m not stupid, goddammit! I know how you felt. I just can’t feel the same thing directly.”

An unjust mercy. I should be the one who could happily skip along without a ripple.

“Maybe you will if I pull the trigger. Maybe this is the final lesson in how to be a real person. How to feel actual pain and empathy.”

The expression on his face was like a wounded animal, looking at his attacker in disbelief. “You knew what I was. I never lied or pretended with you. I let you see it all.”

And then, against all I thought I was capable of, I pulled the trigger. Instinctively I flinched, but nothing happened. The chamber had been empty. Shannon lunged for me, and the gun slipped out of my hands as his full weight settled on top of me on the bed.

“Is this how it’s going to be now? Am I going to have to keep you on suicide watch?” he asked, his breathing coming out wild and heavy.

“I can’t live with what I’ve done. I can’t stop seeing the things you’ve done.”

“I won’t involve you ever again. I shouldn’t have brought you along this time. I thought I was doing something good for you so you could get your revenge.”

In fairness to him, I’d thought it was something good for me, too. I’d thought I needed to not just be told or hear that Stevens was gone, but to see it happen with my own eyes, to watch him struggle, to absorb his fear out of the air as if it might energize and sustain me. To watch the light go out of his eyes and see for myself that he couldn’t hurt anybody else again and that he’d gotten what he deserved. But the actual cold reality of death and murder wasn’t the glamourized fantasy of the movies with no emotional consequences. It was harsh, brutal, awkwardly violent, and poisonous to all who participated.