Gavin
Itake the gun from Maya’s hand before she can pull the trigger on me.
I do what I should have done in the first place and make sure she is no longer a threat to the ones I love, and kill her.
I point it between her pathetic eyes and send it.
She falls to the floor, with her brain splattered across the walls.
Whoever the fuck this woman is, Coraline trusted her like family. My teeth grind against each other as I hover over her dead body. She almost took me away from the love of my life. I can’t even feel the bullet wound in my shoulder right now. All I feel is rage.
The entire room spins as I watch the only motherly figure in my life I have left, look at me with eyes begging me to save her.
The person who did her best to raise me is bleeding out profusely.
It keeps pouring out of her chest and onto the floor like a waterfall.
Her eyes are wide, her face already pale, and her mouth is gaping.
She’s clawing at her wound as Coraline and Georgia circle her urgently.
No.
“Gavin…” Georgia shakes her head, already telling me what I already know.
She’s going to die.
My heart breaks. Merelyn is looking straight at me while Coraline plugs her wounds with her hands.
“No, no, no,” Coraline repeatedly cries, doing her best to stop the bleeding, but it’s not working. The sound of sirens is nearing. I’m on my knees in an instant and lift Merelyn’s head until she’s on my lap. Her lips are turning pale blue, and there is no more light in her greying eyes.
I can’t lose her, not like this, and not right now.
“You hear those sirens, Mer.” I force a smile. “Officer Matt will be here soon. I can hear the ambulance. You’d better not go anywhere.”
I smooth her white hair back. She hangs onto my hand. Her skin is already running cold.
“We both know my time is over,” she murmurs weakly. Her breathing turns short and shallow. Blood is everywhere. On my knees, shirt, and shoes.
“Don’t say that. You have to stay awake for me, okay?
” I grab her hand, pulling her to my chest. She’s right.
She isn’t going to make it, but miracles happen all the time.
The artist I’ve been secretly admiring showed up on my land, and we spent the most enchanting weeks of our lives together.
If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.
“You’re going to live. You’re not going anywhere.”
I grip her shoulders when she closes her eyes. She doesn’t get to go anywhere.
“I get to tell your mom what you’ve been up to all these years. It’s okay to say goodbye.” She blinks slowly, her eyes already trying to roll upwards. Georgia and Coraline continue to sob silently, grabbing towels and blankets to buy Merelyn more time.
“I’m looking at her right now,” I tell her, a rock in my throat as my muscles begin to quiver. I force a somber smile as a warm teardrop falls out of my eyes. “I got two mamas,” I scoff, my throat and chest hurting.
Merelyn can’t leave me. She’s all I have left in Sleepy Coldwater.
Her mouth parts, and a weak smile crests her face.
She reaches out, her finger tips grazing my cheek.
I’ve always seen her as a mother to me when I lost my own.
She’s a guide. An angel to steer me to make the right choice, a path of morality, and to give me the childhood that my drunken father stole away.
She’s slipping away, and there’s nothing I can do.
I want to scream at the world. I want Maya to revive just so I can kill her again, but this time, I would make it slow and painful.
She can’t die.
“You’ve always been my boy,” she murmurs, accepting her fate for us both. She’s barely able to form her last words. Her lips close at the same time her hand falls to her side. My eyes grow wider with affliction. I take her hand back into mine and squeeze, wishing she would squeeze my hand back.
She doesn’t.
She takes her last breath. Her bleeding chest falls for the last time, coming to a complete rest. I wait for it to rise again, feeling for a pulse in her cold neck, but it doesn’t come. I’m back in a familiar hell of grief.
No.
No.
God, this isn’t happening.
Coraline sags to the side, completely pale and distraught, matching my emotions. I study her for a second, only wanting her arms to fall apart in. As if she can read my mind, she inches closer.
But before she can embrace me, Merelyn’s front door is being broken into by the police.
The captain—my close friend, Matt, has his weapon drawn and pointed toward the ground.
He spots Maya, then darts his lethal gaze at us.
His red cheeks match the color of his hair, while his brown eyes dart and assess the situation.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “What the hell happened here?”