Page 110 of Wrong Mail

"So you can kill me like the others?"

His face changes. "I would never hurt you."

"You already have."

"No. Listen to me. Put the gun down because you don't understand what is happening."

My arms won’t stop shaking, and the barrel shakes with them. I have no memory of ever holding one. It feels like it wants out of my grip. I am pointing it at my husband, and every part of me is screaming to pull the trigger.

But it’s still David.

The man I fell in love with.

That’s the thing my body can’t get past. His face. His voice. The man who slept beside me. The man who made coffee in our kitchen. The man who may have killed all those people and still knows exactly how to say my name.

"Mallory. You know me.”

He says it softly, and that is what nearly breaks me.

“I thought I did,” I say.

My finger tightens.

Not enough.

He sees it.

Then he rushes forward.

Not for me. For the gun.

His hands close over mine, hard and sudden, forcing the barrel away. My finger slips against the trigger. For one terrible second I think it is going to fire into the floor, into his leg, into both of us.

"Let go," he says. "Mallory, please, let go."

Thunder cracks over the house, close enough to shake the walls.

I shove him back with everything I have.

He stumbles but doesn't let go. The gun jerks between us, pulling me forward as he tries to wrench it down. His shoulder catches mine.

I twist away.

As he grabs for my arm, I feel the desk behind me.

I hit it hard, hip first, then ribs, and the whole room jumps. My feet go out from under me. I fall backward over the edge, still gripping the gun, still trying to keep it away from him.

The corner of the desk catches the side of my head.

The room goes white. Something bursts behind my eyes, and the black comes up fast through it. I can't find the floor.

I’m no longer in the study.

I am back in my car. The glass is going, a fast silver web tearing across it. There’s water. So much water. Black water climbing the hood, up the glass, coming in cold around my feet, and the dark rises with it.

The darkness takes the water, and the study, and David's voice, all of it, at once.

Then there’s nothing.