Page 63 of Trigger Happy Ending

Death? My mind sort of melts as the weight of what she confesses sinks in. Bound to them for life? My memory skitters back to our conversation, where she asked if I ever think about what it would be like to live a normal life. Knowing what I know now, I can see why she asked me that. And why she obviously reimagines herself in her daydreams. Here I was thinking she loves this life, and the power and control that comes with it, when really, I couldn’t have been more wrong. She’s boxed in, unable to escape a life she clearly wants out of. She’s a prisoner.

I don’t really know what to say to her, so I choose to remain silent.

“Don’t be weird.”

“I’m not being weird.”

“You are. Your eyes softened. I saw them.”

“My eyes what?”

Raine clears her throat. “Listen. Don’t feel sorry for me.”

“Okay,” I say. “I won’t.”

Hurt flashes across those eyes of hers. Wait, have I upset her? I’m confused now, because she just told me not to feel sorry for her, but it seems like she’s changed her mind, and actually, she does want me to feel sorry for her? Why did she say one thing, but really mean another?

Women, man. I can’t keep up.

Raine swallows. “When this is over, where will you go?”

I inhale the deepest breath I can, if only to buy a few extra seconds before I have to answer. It’s never been my plan to reveal where I plan on settling down—to anyone—but again, in the space of one day, it seems like everything has changed between us.

“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.” I grin, breaking the tension that’s worked its way into our conversation. “I have a lakehouse. Upstate.”

My home is in a deeply secluded area, perched on the waterfront, surrounded by thick forest. It’s barely accessible, hidden road in, and the best feature, it doesn’t exist on any map. Not even Google Earth can spot it. Not a soul knows where it is—and I’m hellbent on keeping it that way.

“Was it worth it?” she asks quietly.

“What? Building a lakehouse?”

She shakes her head. “No. Getting revenge.”

I clear my throat. It’s a question with layers for answers. In many ways, it was worth it. The feeling of watching the life drain from the people who took those you love away from you feels victorious in the moment. It satisfied some broken part of me. But it didn’t fill the void, didn’t heal the hurt. It actually ruined my life if I really think about it. “Well, it doesn’t bring them back if that answers your question … But when everything else is gone, there isn’t much left, you know? So, no. I don’t regret it. I don’t know what that makes me.”

I search her face, try to read her mind. What does she think of me?

“It makes you, you, Soren.”

She says it like it’s the most simple thing in the world to understand. It makes me, me. Which is what exactly? A monster?

“You want it, too, don’t you?” I lower my voice. “Revenge?”

Her perfectly arched eyebrows twitch, just slightly. If I wasn’t so locked in on her beautiful face, I would have missed the tell she just revealed. It was minute, almost imperceptible, but it was there.

For something done to her? Or for something done to someone else?

Raine’s eyes lock to mine in confirmation. I wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t.

A breeze lifts the plastic sushi lid, sending it skittering across the table. Raine catches it swiftly. “Do you think you’ll be able to live a peaceful life after all this death?”

Sighing heavily, I snap the chopsticks in two and toss them into the empty plastic sushi container. I cross my elbows over the bench. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to?”

“If I’ve got something worth living for. Then, I guess so, yeah.”

“What’s worth living for?”