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“We need to get back. You’re not wrong to be worried about Marco, but the safest place for you right now is with me.”
“Just let me think!” I scream, my hands rising to my ears. The ringing overwhelms me. I feel her hand reaching up to touch me, and I slap it aside, backing away. “Don’t!’
“Everything will be okay?—”
“How?” I shout, glaring at her. “How is everything going to be okay? You don't know what's gone on in the last few weeks. You don't know what I've been through.”
A low hum of frustration slips out, her hands clenching at her sides. “I know exactly what’s happened. I’ve read the reports.”
“You read…” I barely process the sentence when I hear the concussion of the gunshot, echoing through the canyon walls. “What?—”
Rachelle’s eyes go wide. Time grinds to a halt.
Crimson catches my eye, blossoming across her belly, her coat falling open.
Soaking into her dress, a dress I suddenly recognize. Glittering, liquid metal. Gold.
The Herald. The Matron of the Ball.
As that horror dawns on me, a numbness spreads through my side. I look down to the red spilling down my front.
The bullet went through me…
Numb confusion overtakes my mind as I slip to the ground, chills spreading through my limbs. The only things I can think of as I start to black out are three names, three aching holes in my heart.
“Gavin. Tell. Evan… Help.”
EPILOGUE: ALAYA
Ever since I was a little girl, there's always been something about the sweet sickly smell of gun smoke that's made me feel alive, secure, exhilarated. As I got older, it turned into something else.
It got me hot.
Bothered.
It's always a sickening sort of feeling right before I fire.
Every time, an aura kinda takes over my brain, almost like deja vu, but all in a rush of images, smells, tastes. Like memories I’ve forgotten or something left over from a dream that I can’t quite put my finger on.
It makes my breathing fast, like hyperventilating, and my eyes flutter.
Mama always told me it was seizures in my head. Nothing they could do about it.
So, I savor them, even though they make me feel sad, like I lost a precious memory. That’s nothing new to me, though.
I’ve lost everything over and over again in my life.
Daddy.
Mama.
June and Carpenter.
Every time the feeling stops, my head clears. That’s when I pull the trigger.
Usually, it’s a mad dash right after, but when I can, I linger. Lie there. Inhale the smoke. Think long and hard on the life I took.
I’ve had a gun in my hand since I was five and Daddy took me out hunting. My first kill was a buck. Then a bear. When I was ten, he ordered me to shoot a trespasser.
