Gun Shy(70)

Leo’s jaw clenches, his eyes darken. Anguish. Oh, how well I know that feeling.

I wish it could be different. This is my greatest unanswered wish, the thing that burned in some tiny part of my soul all these years. That someday, things might be different. But as I look at Leo, the boy I used to know, the man I still love, I search for that flame that burned quietly.

It’s not there anymore. It’s gone. Just like Jennifer, it has disappeared. The love is there, but the hope – the hope has been smothered.

“I’m so sorry, Leo,” I say softly. “You waited all that time to see me again. And I was such a disappointment to you.”

“Cass, wait—” he says, but I don’t stop. I keep walking, through the kitchen, past the office, through the fire escape and outside.

It’s cold, so very cold, but it doesn’t matter. I walk until I get past the dumpsters and into the parking lot, and then I start to run.

I make it home in record time. Thirteen minutes - I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast. I slow only when I reach our front driveway, checking for signs of Damon.

He’s not here. I saw his car parked in front of the sheriff’s office, and there’s no way he’d come back on foot. I still don’t have keys to my own fucking house, not that it matters.

I go around back and find a suitable piece of firewood in the stack that leans up against the house, using it as a club that I swing into the kitchen window. It breaks on the third hit.

Momentarily, I stare at the spot where Jennifer is buried and feel a pang of jealousy stab at me. I think, for a long moment, about how peaceful it must be under all that dirt, as I drop the piece of wood, hoisting myself up on a couple of old cinderblocks and into the kitchen.

Cold air billows into the house, but I ignore it. I collect my supplies with military precision; a razor blade, a fifth of vodka, a chair, the bottle of Percocet I’ve had hidden beneath a loose floorboard in my bedroom. I take it all up to the bathroom, where not twelve hours ago Damon was scrubbing Ray’s blood from my burning skin.

I hope he finds me, dead and bloodless.

I hope he cries.

I hope it rips him to shreds that his love, his darkness, was the thing that killed me.

I take the pills while the tub fills with warm water, three at a time, washed down with vodka that burns as I gulp it. I can’t take so many pills that I start throwing up, but enough that it won’t hurt so much when I slip off, or under, or whatever the fuck it is that comes before my final sleep. I catch sight of myself in the mirror as I’m throwing pills down my throat, and the girl staring back at me makes me so fucking angry that I ball my hand into a fist and smash the mirror to pieces. My knuckles start to bleed, the pain sharp and hot. Good. Very good.

I strip down to my underwear, the bruises and cuts littering my body telling a tale that I’d never be able to voice. I sink into the tub, steam rising from the water’s surface as it rises, taking the razor and pressing it down into the flesh at my left wrist before I can think, before I can hesitate. Oh fuck, it hurts. Even with the painkillers starting to take effect, it still hurts enough that I gag. Blood spurts from my radial artery like syrup, thicker than I expected, and faster. The room spins. Holy fuck. Maybe I won’t have to cut the other one after all.

But Damon. He could come home at any moment. Find me. Save me. And then spend the rest of my life making sure I’m never alone again.

Cut the other wrist, the dark voice inside me urges. It’s so hard to grip the razor in my left hand, what with the blood gushing from my left wrist and all, but I manage. I repeat the action on my right wrist, not getting quite as deep, but deep enough that this shouldn’t take long.

I drop the razor somewhere in the water, letting my head loll back against the edge of the tub. I hold my wrists up in front of me, laughing, and then it all goes blissfully beautifully black inside. It was a nice life, before Damon. It was such a lovely life before him.





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE





LEO





She explicitly warned me against going to her house. But something’s not right. Something is very fucking wrong. I don’t know what happened last night after Cassie got home. I watched as she got home, as she got inside and flicked on the light. I watched as Damon arrived home. I watched as the bathroom light went on, and Cassie’s bedroom, and finally as the house went dark. There was no noise, no struggle, no signal that I was desperately seeking. And so I went back to bed, Cassie’s panties in my hand as I jerked off and came all over the sheets where we’d just fucked for the first time in eight years.

But the girl I watched jog up to her front door last night was not the same girl I frightened in the diner this morning. Something happened. Something bad. And I’m going to find out what he did to her.

If only she’d open the goddamn front door. I knock and knock, pounding my fist on the door to no avail. I ring the bell. Something is wrong. There’s an anxiety gnawing at me. I need to get inside this house. I need to see with my own two eyes that Cassie is okay. When she left, there was a look in her eyes that scared the absolute shit out of me. A look I’ve never seen before, not even after the accident all those years ago.

I go around back, trudging through melting snow to the back door. I’m about to try it when I notice the kitchen window has been smashed. Shit. If she’s in there, alone, and someone has broken in, I have to get in there and save her. I’ll kill them if I have to, to keep her safe. I don’t care if I end up on death row if it keeps her from harm.