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“Give me a hand here” Nik turns to Reaper, his mood gentler now. They help a trembling, terrified and traumatised Dan into Craig’s old chair. Nik nods to Reaper, and all of a sudden we’re left.

Me, Dan, and Nik. Alone. Alone except with two still-warm corpses.

“What you have done to this woman, is unforgivable…” Nik starts, Dan tries to speak, and is silenced immediately by the harshness of the back of Nik’s hand “…don’t fucking interrupt me. There are no words you can give that make amends for what you have done.”

Tears pour from my eyes, watching this unfold fills me with mixed emotions of every complex, intricate and conflicting kind. Then he turns to me. He squats by my chair and speaks directly to my soul.

“There is nowhere in the world you can go that I won’t hunt you. There is no universe that I will not follow you. There is no cosmos that I will not worship you. And there is no circle of hell where I share the planet with that fucking thing over there. I failed to keep you safe, and I will serve penance for the rest of my life for that shameful failure. But now the choice is yours, and you have to make it, but if I’m going to die, it’ll be here, on my knees for you.”

He closes my hands around the gun, and guides the barrel into his own mouth. He closes his eyes, I feel his breath following the barrel. Looking at his face, his beautiful face. Wearing the same neutral expression, my beautiful, ruptured soul. I squeeze my eyes closed, and kiss his forehead.

I bring my lips to his ear and breathe in a deep, shaky breath before whispering, my lips brushing his ear “Thank you… I love you.” He squeezes his eyes closed, waiting for a death that doesn’t come, as I pull the gun from his mouth.

Clarity has never hit another being so quickly, like a sledgehammer to my chest. I’ve never had a spiritual awakening, but if I did, this is how it would feel. Full of wild, burning, feminine rage. Fuelled by bullshit oppression, years of self-loathing, everything I’ve been through, the catalyst for the derailing of my life. I turn to Dan, walking towards him, the gun still in my shaking hands. Steadying my breath once again, as I did in the van, copying all the times I’ve seen Nik do it.

“Do you remember… when we first met?” I ask him, but I don’t wait for his response “Bright eyed, my whole life ahead of me, I wish I could see, back then, how beautiful I was. Then you came along, you were everything, Dan. My whole fucking life. It was like a dream… Do you remember when we moved into the big house? And we spent the whole weekend celebrating?”

“Yeah, baby, I do… of course I do” Dan manages, tears in his eyes

“Do you remember how that weekend ended?” The confusion in his face as he searches. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t even remember.

“I do. That was the first time you hit me” the venom starting to burn its way up my throat, trying to push a vomit which I suck back down with gritted determination.

“I’m so sorry baby, I got help on the inside, I’m sorry, it will never happen again, never ever I swear to you, you know I’d never do anything to hurt you”

What once would’ve washed away my hurt, today fills me with disgusted pity. I shake my head, and shake the last tear I’ll shed for him from my cheek. A tired, bittersweet resolve sweeps my body.

“That’s what you said then, too. I love you, Dan, I’m sorry.” I take one last look at him, at the end of my barrel. His eyes widen when he realises. Caught in the headlights of a lifetime of hurt, of lacking accountability or true remorse. A life where my words meant nothing and his feelings need not be controlled. A life we shared, and a life I will end.

I squeeze with all my might. My arms absorb the shock of the recoil. My whole body falls a step backwards. His body thuds to the ground with finality as his last words echo in my head.

I close my eyes, and see every memory. I see the boy I met, the boy I fell in love with, all the years replay like a montage, eventually he becomes the monster in front of me. The monster that will haunt me no more.

The monster I’ve chosen reaches his hands around me, pulling my back to his chest, silently holding me and placing a kiss on my hair. Leaving his face on the top of my head, breathing me in as my tears become sobs, and my sobbing becomes wailing. I mourn the boy I met all those years ago, I mourn the choices we’ve made, the pieces of myself that I’ll never get back, the years and the hurt I can never undo.

“Come on, baby, it’s time,” he tells me and I turn to face him. Looking up and running my hands through that silky beard, gripping him and pulling his face to mine, my lips brush his.

“Blood still looks good on you” he whispers in my ear, with a half smirk “…my little darling”

“Pspspsps”.

Shit.

Thirty Five

Young Sawyer (Age 18)

I was so excited I ran through the house without even taking my coat off. Daddy is sitting in his chair, drinking his whisky. He raises his eyebrows at me. He hasn’t touched me since I started dating Dan.

Life is so good now, Dan’s making so much money we barely know what to do with it.

“Daddy, look!” I show him my certificate saying I passed my driving test and “And look what Dan got me!” I practically drag him to the drive, where there’s a brand new Mercedes hatchback with a big ribbon on it!

“Wow, he’s really looking after you, huh, hun?” He looks so impressed

“Actually, whilst I’m here Mr Stones…” Dan starts, Daddy folds his arms and takes a deep breath “Things have gotten pretty serious between us. With your blessing, I want her to move in with me”

Daddy looks impressed, not very surprised, but impressed. He always said Dan was a young up and comer. Destined for big things, apparently. I don’t ask questions about work any more. Neither of them tell me anything, anyway. I can guess, but that’s all it is, really.