Page 116 of The Circle

Lest there be any confusion… not the diamond.

The crying child who is working valiantly now to stifle her tears.

“Let the girl go, man. Let her go and you and I will walk away. I give you my assurance that no one will ever come for us if you do as I ask.”

“Your assurance?” he says, both cynically and rhetorically. “I do not require anyone else’s assurance but my own, bru.”

It is like hearing an echo of myself speaking back to me. It is unpleasant.

“What else is there that you might want?” I ask.

“I don’t know that there is anything, my seun. You have made clear where your loyalties lie. You have made clear that you do not feel the same way about the van den Berg legacy that I do. But this one here…” He gestures with Andra as though she were a prop. “This one is still unformed. Ripe for molding. Perhaps it was a girl I needed all along, eh? Maybe she is to be the one to carry forth the work I have created.”

His madness is in full bloom and so very beyond logic or reason that I now see no amount of talking to him will create resolution.

Fortunately, I am spared having to make a decision about what to do next as the crack from atop the building makes it for me.

The shot going off pulls everyone’s attention skyward except mine.

I, instead, am drawn directly toward Andra, grabbing her from Zander’s arms and throwing my body atop hers as the two of us fall to the ground as one.

CHRISTINE

I dodge as the bullet from the sniper rifle pierces the night air.

As I’m diving, Danny comes bounding to the roof, shirtless, blood covering his face.

He races toward Anton, who turns the rifle on him. But before Anton is able to get off another shot, Danny tackles him around the waist and drives him backward into the low wall where he had been perched.

And that should be that.

Except I know from experience…

Anton is tougher than he looks.

His back arches as it snaps into the brick, but rather than shrieking out in pain, he just begins pummeling Danny. Right in the face. Right in the area where the shot from before has very likely cost Danny his eye.

Danny roars in agony, and I scramble to pick up the sniper rifle as shots ring out from the ground below.

DANNY

At least I’ve nowfound the one other person here who knows how to absorb pain and not bitch about it.

He’s strong. Unexpectedly, frighteningly strong. His fists barreling into my face feel like they’re made of iron. I have been hit by iron rods before, so I’m not just making it up. It’s fucking rough.

On top of which, bullets from submachine guns are now flying my direction. Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of them will hit Anton in the back of his goddamn head. The shots seem to be coming our way indiscriminately.

Christine scrambles to pick up the sniper rifle that I knocked out of Anton’s hands and I can barely make out the shape of her as she steadies herself on the edge of the wall. I’m trying desperately to hold Anton in place as he batters my head and face, and then, after a prolonged moment of struggle, I hear…

Pop. Then another pop.

Two shots. Two quick, sharp shots with a bullet being chambered between the first and the second.

Two sniper rifle shots.

And, immediately, the sound of the gunfire from below stops.

ALEC