Chapter 45 #2
Sharon’s wine glass shatters on the floor.
My chair shrieks backward across the hardwood as I drop low, instinct overriding all conscious thought.
Somewhere above me, someone is screaming—maybe Sharon, maybe Haven—and the smell of gunpowder burns the back of my throat.
Sharon jerks backward, a red bloom spreading across her chest as she crumples to the floor.
Haven screams, grabs my arm, and tries to haul me toward the front door.
But I’ve grown roots. I can’t do anything except hunker low and stare at my mother’s body, at the blood pooling beneath her, at the way her eyes are still open, still blinking, still alive.
“Christ! Sharon!” Dad’s voice cracks. He takes a stumbling step backward, gaping at Ezra in sheer panic. “What did you do? What did you—”
Then he turns and runs.
“Where you going, Daddy?” Ezra yells.
The second shot slams into Richard’s lower back. He goes down hard, skidding across the marble floor on his stomach.
Haven is yanking at me, but it’s like someone else is controlling my body—and they’ve hit pause.
Ezra ambles toward Richard like he has all the time in the world. There’s a strange calm on his scarred face, like all this yelling and killing has been cathartic as fuck.
Guess he never needed therapy.
He just had to kill our parents.
He stands over our father’s writhing body, watching him try to crawl toward the door. “I’ve fantasized about this, you know? Watching you die.”
He kicks Dad in the ribs and chuckles when our father grunts in pain.
“Wish I’d planned a speech or something.”
Another kick, slowing Dad’s already sluggish escape.
“Guess all you need to know is that I fucking hate you. I’ve hated you every single day of my miserable fucking life. I’d let you suffer as long as humanly possible, but you’ve already stolen enough air from this world.”
He crouches down, pressing the barrel of the gun against the back of Dad’s head.
“Burn in hell, Dad.”
Three shots. I jerk at each impossibly loud crack.
It feels like I’m on a bullet train headed to hell, right behind Dad.
Haven has given up trying to drag me to the door. For all I know, she’s run away. I don’t blame her. If I had control of my legs, I’d be right behind her. Instead I’m forced to stand in place like a plastic army soldier with feet glued to a base.
Ezra stands slowly, his back to me.
When he turns around to face me, there’s nothing human left in his eyes.
Blood glistens wetly on his black puffer jacket, a fine red spray painting his jaw and cheek.
“Think we’ll get a family suite down there?” he says, making no fucking sense. He chuckles when I just keep staring at him. “Hell, bro. We’re all going to hell.”
The barrel swings toward me.
I brace myself.
This is it. This is how I die—standing between a monster and the woman I love, in the house where I learned that love and pain are the same thing.
There’s a blur of movement.
Haven isn’t behind me anymore.
She hasn’t run away.
She’s throwing herself at Ezra, knocking his arm away as he fires.
The bullet meant for my head tears through my leg instead.
Pain explodes up my thigh, white-hot and blinding. I go down, clutching at the wound, blood pouring through my fingers.
Ezra yells in frustration, turning to aim the gun at her. It wavers, my brother still off-balance from her tackle.
And Haven’s not done.
He charges her, but—
—the blade of the electric knife is already buried in his stomach.
Haven tries to pull it out—I assume so she can drive it in again—but it’s stuck on something. Muscle, maybe his ribcage. So she pauses, puffs a strand of hair out of her face, and presses the on button.
The electric knife chugs and whines as it eviscerates Ezra’s flesh.
The serrated blades chew through skin and muscle, grinding against something hard with a sick, grating sound before finally punching deeper.
Ezra splutters out a mouthful of chunky, frothy blood and drops the gun. He tries to pull out the knife, but Haven grabs the handle with both hands and shoves him backward in a blur of motion and fury—years of accumulated rage finally finding an outlet.
“Haven—” I try to stand, but my wounded leg buckles. Nausea hits me, so intense I dry-retch. “Haven, stop!”
She doesn’t hear me.
A sound somewhere between a power drill and a baby chainsaw fills the dining room as blood and wet, ropy strands of flesh spray from the torn-open mess of his abdomen. Something pale and slick bulges around the vibrating blade.
Ezra falls backward, and Haven goes with him, crouching over him as his body twitches under the whining knife.
Jesus. So much blood.
It coats her hands. Her arms. Her face. Spraying up with each thrust, painting her crimson.
“Haven!” I drag myself toward her, leaving a smear of red across the marble. “Haven, he’s dead!”
I grab her arm, and she turns on me with wild eyes, her finger slipping off the button. The motor cutting off sounds like an animal dying.
Haven stares at me like she doesn’t know who the fuck I am or why I’m ruining her fun.
“Easy, easy,” I murmur, grimacing through the pain as I drag myself closer. I gently pry the knife from her fingers. No sudden movements, in case she decides to press that button and aim the blade at me. “It’s okay, Heavenly. I’ve got you.”
I set the knife behind me, as far out of reach of Haven as I can, but she doesn’t even seem to notice. She’s looking down at her hands as they slowly open and close on nothing.
“It’s okay,” I manage in a thick voice.
Her focus slowly shifts to the gaping hole in Ezra’s stomach.
I make the mistake of following her gaze. Somewhere in that wet flesh cave, I spot something that might be intestines. Or a kidney. What does a liver look like?
Haven does nothing as I turn and puke up Mom’s dry turkey and the two beers I drank.
A broken, bubbling exhale draws my attention. For a dreadful second, I think it’s Ezra.
But it’s Mom.
She’s still propped up against the wall where she fell, her Chanel suit drenched in blood. Her eyes are open, fixed on Haven with an expression of pure horror.
“You killed him,” she whispers, pink foam bubbling out the corners of her mouth. “You killed my baby.”
Haven doesn’t seem to hear her—she’s too busy gazing at Ezra’s guts.
I wish I had the strength to pull her away, but all I can do is stare at my mother.
At the woman who watched and did nothing.
If there’s one thing I’m sure about, it’s that those days are over.
When the police arrive, Sharon won’t be quiet.
She’ll tell the cops exactly what happened—or at least, her version.
That Ezra was threatening suicide, that Haven killed him.
She might even blame Richard’s death on my girlfriend, because that’ll be easier than admitting her son killed the father who’d been abusing him for years.
The woman who never used to say a word will talk. The mother who always looked the other way when evil acts were being committed will come forward and ruin my life…just like she ruined Ezra’s.
I’ve never been more certain of anything in my fucking life.
I reach behind me and pick up the knife.
Mom’s eyes widen when I crawl closer. “Baby,” she mumbles.
The knife vibrates in my hands when I press the on button.
She lets out another wet gurgle.
“Hey, Mom?” Sharon’s eyes flutter wider, her nostrils flaring as she struggles to focus on me. “When you get to hell, tell Richie to go fuck himself.”
I drag the humming blade across her throat.
She tries to gasp, but it comes out wet and shredded, like the scraps of a Thanksgiving meal going down the garbage disposal.
Blood pours over my hand in hot, pulsing bursts as the knife’s teeth chatter through skin and muscle. She stares at me, mouth working soundlessly, her whole body shivering with each judder of the blades…
And then she’s gone.
I sit there, knife in hand, leg screaming, surrounded by the bodies of my family.
“Happy Thanksgiving, fuckers,” I say, suppressing the demented urge to start laughing.
I set the carving knife down on the edge of the table, breathing hard. Whatever Mom paid for this thing, it was worth it.
Efficient. Easy to use.
10/10 would recommend.
I turn to Haven.
Her knees are drawn up, her arms wrapped around herself, and she’s rocking herself side to side. Her lips are moving, but there’s no sound coming out.
“Heavenly?” I touch her face, leaving bloody fingerprints on her cheek. “Baby, we have to go.”
Nothing.
“Baby, please. We have to go. Right now.”
She blinks slowly, but there’s still zero recognition in her eyes.
“Hey, guess what?” I announce in a loud, cheery voice.
Haven flinches.
“We’re gonna play a game, Miss H! Would you like that?”
“A game?” she says in a distant, dreamy voice.
“Yeah! Let’s play Columbus and Jane.”
Haven gives a half-hearted shrug.
“I’m Columbus…” I touch my fingertips to my chest, and then gently touch her chest in the same way. “You’re Jane, okay?”
“Jane,” she repeats slowly.
“Yeah, and we’re on the run from cannibals!” I drop my voice. “Ooh, scary!”
She shudders, and reaches up to touch her face. Then holds out her hands to study the blood coating her skin. “Can-bals,” she slurs.
“You got it, Miss H!”
I grab the back of the nearest chair and haul myself up, biting back a scream when my wounded leg takes my weight. The bleeding hasn’t stopped. I need to do something about that, need to get us both out of here, need to—
I nearly skid in all the blood.
Okay. One thing at a time.
“Come on.” I grab her under the arm, tugging her up. “Up you get.”
She nods and stands, docile as a child.
I crouch down, ignoring the pounding ache in my leg, and let Haven climb onto my back. Her arms wrap around my neck, her legs around my waist—just like when we were kids.
“Hold tight, Jane,” I tell her.
Her grip tightens as she melts against me. “Don’t let them get me, Columbus,” she whispers.
I have to swallow past the lump in my throat as I limp for the back door, leaving bloody footprints in my wake.
“No one’s gonna get you, baby,” I murmur. “No one ever again.”