Page 98 of The Circle

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

As Alec grabsthe rifle and spins it around, I likewise go for the kid Liam’s gun while his attention is drawn away. But Liam is twitchy and faster than I anticipated. He snaps back toward me and yells, “Don’t!” His Saffie accent shakes with anxiety.

This poor kid. Where did he come from? And without warning, lots of faces run through my head. The kid Lars shot in the woods, the one Alec called Solomon. Lars himself. Others we’ve killed over the years. A little girl called Christine who crushed a bug open because she was just looking to find something, anything, beautiful, and tried to seek it in death.

Because life was black and ugly and she thought that maybe, on the other side, something beautiful might escape and be free.

And I start crying.

Not sobbing, but crying without being able to stop it, the tears just rolling down my cheeks. And Liam stares at me, now unsure what the hell to do.

“Alec, look,” Zander says from the stage, “you’re making Christine cry. You need to stop your silly games.”

Alec chances a glance at me long enough to see that I am, in fact, crying. I wish I weren’t. I wish I could stop it. But in addition to just being a person who is near the end of their goddamn rope, I also think my hormones might be out of fucking control just at the moment. So I just let the tears fall.

I think of this kid, Liam. He’s so young. It’s easy to see him as someone’s son. Someone gave birth to him, and fed him, and gave him enough support for long enough that he could have life. And now whoever did that for him is no longer here and he’s found his way into this mess.

He shouldn’t be here. No one should. This is no way to live a life.

I’m crying mostly because I’m realizing that the best thing we can do is take Zander up on his offer and leave. Walk away. Danny and I can just go—somewhere, anywhere—and build a new life so that when we have our kid, that kid will never have to know what we’ve known. They won’t have to seek out beauty in the awful and grotesque because a beautiful life will already be there for them.

We can do that. We can just go, maybe back to the Cook Islands or someplace like that, and we can just… disappear. Again. For good.

What would be so bad about that?

Nothing.

Except that we wouldn’t be complete. We wouldn’t be whole. There would always be a part missing. We’d be unfinished. So the tears keep falling mostly because right now I don’t know what to choose or what to do.

And then…

I throw up. A-fucking-gain.

As before, there’s nothing really left in there to come out, but what little my body can manufacture finds its way onto the floor.

“Alec, man! Look!” Zander says. “Look what you’re doing to here. You’ve got her upset beyond, man. Come now. Let’s stop all this!”

Once again, just like she did on the Autobahn, Eliza comes to my side. And just like she did in the car, she takes my hand. “She needs to lie down. Fuck your guns and all your large-dick energy for a moment and let her lie down, you fucking twats,” she spits out in her London street tone.

“She and Danny are welcome to go,” Zander says. “Perhaps you should take the matter up with your child’s father.”

“Fuck you, cunt,” Eliza tosses off.

“Mr. Gorny, sir?” Liam squeaks. “What should I do, sir?”

“You can start by taking that fucking rifle out of her face,” Eliza says.

“Eliza,” I cough as I’m spitting the rest of what’s in me out of me.

“Christine,” Danny says, edging my way. Liam turns the rifle on him.

“Stay there!” Liam shouts.

And I must assume that in everyone’s distraction, Zander has pressed the button on the underside of the table again because…

The door bursts open and half a dozen more armed guards, the same ones who were in here before, charge into the room, weapons drawn.

Alec doesn’t take the rifle he’s holding away from being pointed at his father.