Grounded (Up in the Air #3)(100)

I was so intent on this thought that I didn’t even look at the monster amidst the carnage for long moments. I had made my way closer to Stephan before I raised my eyes to those pale blue ones that looked so much like my own.

It was like staring into the eyes of a rabid animal, his malevolence written in every tense line of his face. It was hard to imagine that he had ever been a sane person, looking at him now. But had he ever been sane? I couldn’t have said. Perhaps sanity had never been the question. He wasn’t even a human to me, but a monstrous demon that destroyed and terrified. And the only one who had ever been able to act as protection between him and me now lay crumpled at my feet, red circles on his chest. He had finally done it. The monster had broken me.

My instinct was to freeze, and so I watched without moving as he approached, some awful expression that was shaped like a smile overtaking his face.

I didn’t have that violent thing inside of me like my father did. I didn’t have an urge to hurt anyone, not for any reason. It wasn’t even an urge that I understood. Or at least I hadn’t—not until Stephan lay crumpled at my feet.

My eyes moved from that horrible face and to the tiny pistol at my father’s side. I watched it like a lifeline, letting him see what I was looking at—what I’d fixated on.

He laughed, a dry cackle, and the madness of the laugh made me note, in an absentminded kind of way, that he was on something. Some kind of drug was racing through him, making him crazier, making him stronger, anesthetized to both pain and fear. The man had been a beast without some drug jacking up his system, so it was hardly a reassuring realization.

“I warned you, sotnos. I warned you that if you went to the police, no one could keep you safe from me, but you didn’t believe me. And now your friend is dead. Was it worth it?”

I whimpered, a wholly involuntary sound. He can’t be dead, I told myself. I had to believe it, or I would just crumple into a heap on the ground myself, and never get back up.

My eyes were still glued to that little pistol in his hand.

He laughed again, waving it at me. “You can’t take your eyes off this. You think this will help you? You don’t have the nerve, just like your mother. You couldn’t hurt a fly. Worthless, mewling women.”

He held it right in front of my face, smiling grimly, his bloodshot, crazy eyes glued to mine, their maniacal gleam piercing me. “Take it, if you dare. See what happens, sotnos.”

I never looked away from his eyes. I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t hated him, but I felt it now like a fresh wound. I could kill him without remorse, I realized. He had done that to me, finally broken that part of me. I would not regret if he were dead, even if it was at my hand. I would be putting down a wild beast on a killing rampage. The only regret could be what he’d managed to do before he was stopped.

I wasn’t my mother, though I could wish that I had only taken after her. As much as I wanted to run from the notion, I had enough of my father in me at least for this. It wasn’t even a question, not even a split second of indecision, not with Stephan lying motionless at my feet. I had erred grievously, I saw clearly, in keeping his secret, in living in fear. Far better if he had killed me back then for turning him in than to let him wreak all of this destruction now. That was my regret, and I felt it keenly as I looked at him, surrounded by his victims.

If only I had looked beyond my own fear of what he had done, and thought about all that he was still capable of doing.

Yes, holding my silence for all those years was my regret, but it was my only regret. This thing I was about to do I would not regret, not for a moment.

I had no words for him. Nothing would do my hatred justice, and he wouldn’t hear them besides. He had never valued me, and you didn’t hear someone you didn’t value. My words couldn’t touch him. So I didn’t bother to tell him how I felt. I showed him.

He handed that gun to me with no hesitation, no fear, and I took it, turning it into him with the same motion. I shoved it hard into his chest, aiming for his heart. I squeezed the trigger, barely even feeling the gun’s recoil in my hand as it fired into him.

Foolishly, I thought that would be the end of it.

The monster laughed, wrenching the gun out of my hand. I’d shot him in his chest, a chest already red with his own blood, and he only laughed. I got this sudden crazy notion that he really wasn’t human. How was he still standing?

He opened his mouth, and blood sprayed my face as he spoke. “My turn, sotnos.”

He gripped my hair, pulling my head back, holding it immobile. I began to struggle, but it was no good.

He put the gun inside of my mouth with no effort at all, pushing my own hand over the handle, that maniac’s smile still fixed on his face.

I jerked my face from side to side, caught between his hand in my hair and the gun in my mouth. I was still shaking my head desperately when two simultaneous gunshots sounded. The world went black.

STEPHAN

My chest was on fire. Every breath was agony but I managed to open my eyes just a crack when I heard her voice. Of course she had come for me.

No, no, no, I thought in despair, as I saw her father approach her.

It took me an excruciatingly long time to turn my head to the side. Blake lay unmoving, less than four feet away.

I felt a huge wave of relief as I realized that there was a gun near her side. I knew I couldn’t make a sound as I dragged myself to it. It was a race, and I couldn’t let the pain so much as slow me.