Chapter 65
SAM
Sam’s hands are numb where Tom’s blade presses into his throat, but his mind is impossibly clear—sharper than it has been in years.
He doesn’t panic.
Panic is for people who haven’t learned how to survive the small, brutal lessons of the world.
He learned them in rooms that smelled of boiled cabbage and disinfectant, in foster houses that taught you to hold your breath when doors opened and to love in small, guarded increments.
He learned them with Pete at his side, the two of them scraping warmth from the edges of life and making it count.
“Come on, Tom,” Sam says. “I saved your life earlier today, remember?” He feels the pressure of the blade against his skin soften for a moment, but quickly returns.
Tom doesn’t respond.
“He was going to kill you. He was about to take your eye out before I swooped in and saved you,” Sam says, calmly.
Pete doesn’t say anything, just stands, pointing the gun. He knows when to take a back seat. He can see, despite appearances, Sam has a way in to Tom, one that can help him off this ledge they’re both perched upon.
“You owe me,” Sam says.
“I don’t owe you anything,” Tom hisses back.
Sam can feel Tom’s breath on the back of his neck.
His eyes flick the room like a man doing a rapid-fire inventory of salvation: the heavy ceramic vase on the sideboard that would make a satisfying blunt instrument, the mantel clock he could smash to make a bloody diversion, the coat stand with a bulky overcoat to muffle movement.
Options but none close by.
“Look, I’m just saying, if I hadn’t seen him break into your house and come over, your eyeballs would have been spooned across the bathroom by now.”
“What do you mean ‘seen him’?” Tom fires back.
“We were just keeping an eye on you. We wanted to get to know you properly?” Sam says calmly.
“What? Like cameras?”
Sam dodges the question. “You know he won’t hurt you again, right? You know he’s gone for good.”
Tom stays quiet, but again the pressure on his neck eases for a second.
“He came around earlier, just before you did. Worst possible timing. He had your laptop, some incriminating videos, said he was going to the police unless we gave him money,” Sam admits.
“I don’t believe you,” Tom says, but Sam knows he does.
“It’s true,” Pete adds. “But we silenced him.”
“You’re lying…” Tom breathes.
But he isn’t lying.
Daniel thought he was walking into a negotiation.
That was his first mistake.
He turned up waving Tom’s laptop like a golden ticket, convinced a few video files made him king of the room.
Then produced the gun, which was his next mistake.
He said words like leverage and settlement and we can do this quietly, as if he hadn’t already crossed a line you don’t come back from.
Pete let him talk—Pete’s good at that, letting people think they’re steering the ship right up until they realise they’re already in the water.
By the time Daniel figured out he wasn’t the one holding power, it was too late.
Another obstacle removed.
Cleanly. Efficiently. Permanently.
And also left them with a gun, which has proved useful up to this point.
“He’s out of your life for good now,” Sam says. “Because of us.”
“We did it for you. Because we care for you,” Pete says. The way he can flip on those puppy-dog eyes on demand is a true gift, Sam thinks.
Sam’s heart thuds a steady, practical tempo — think, don’t panic — and he measures distances in steps, plots trajectories for improvised weapons, imagines the arc of a chair hurled as a barrier. There’s a phone on the coffee table, but it’s face-down and locked.
He breathes, slow and shallow, and decides: movement first; distraction second; then the vase.
He just needs Tom to move about ten steps over.
“His body’s in the garage. I can show you,” Sam says.
Then Sam feels it.
A pen in his pocket—cheap, black plastic—he put it there earlier. Now it feels like a weapon. He slides his fingers against the barrel, feeling its small coolness, and the motion is mechanical, rehearsed.
Change of plan.
“No, I don’t want to see it,” Tom says. “I just want to leave.”
That’s not going to happen, Sam thinks.
“And I’m going out the front door, right now,” Tom says, trying to stay calm, but Sam can feel the vibrations of his shaking hand through the blade.
Sam fingers the pen loose, small and heavy in his palm. Then grips it tightly.
The stab is quick — animal — a spike of pain put into Tom’s leg through denim, right where the femoral nerve blooms and convulses. Tom jerks. The hand at Sam’s throat loosens by the fraction Sam needs.
Tom reacts too fast, with that awful, clean panic that has no room for nuance. The blade comes away from Sam’s throat, but in the panic to pull away, the knife comes down and finds flesh.
Sam feels it—hot, sharp—somewhere under his ribs, and the world gets a deeper acoustic. Air rushes from him as if the room itself has exhaled, and the blade twists in an angle that does not belong to the choreography Sam expected.
Tom stumbles forward like someone shoved from behind; in his momentum Sam is pushed as well, stumbling hard toward Pete.
Sam sees the look in his eyes. A half-second of panic before instinct takes over. The gun goes off. No warning, no hesitation. Just a crack of sound that feels like the universe slamming a door shut.
The impact isn’t pain at first. It’s force. A punch from the inside, stealing the breath from Sam’s lungs as the bullet rips through him. He staggers, but the world has already started tilting, colours draining, sound thinning to a high, distant ring.
Time becomes unreliable — either a heartbeat or a whole lifetime passes.
Tom is gone — sprinted out of the room, footsteps fading like someone abandoning a burning house. Sam doesn’t chase him. He can’t. His legs are no longer part of the plan.
He looks up at Pete instead.
Pete stands there, gun trembling, eyes wide and wet — regret, fury, calculation — all fighting for space in his expression.
Sam’s body gives up first. His head drops, vision greying at the edges, the world folding gently inward.
And then the light inside him flickers, once… twice… and goes out.