Chapter 38
Madeline
Madeline is light-headed, and it’s all she can do to stay on her feet, but she holds her ground.
“Get out of my way,” Lucy orders.
“No, Lucy,” Madeline says. “I can’t ask you to do this. Give me the gun.”
Lucy holds the gun tightly in her hand. “No,” she says. “It has to stop. This ends now.” She closes one eye and takes aim.
“Move.”
Madeline steps forward and gently pulls the gun from her grasp. “You’re right. It does have to end, but not this way.”
“Madeline, no,” Lucy says, but she silences her with one look.
“Thank you,” Wes cries from behind her. “Oh my God, thank you, Madeline.”
Madeline turns and looks at her husband.
Blood oozes from his shoulder, and he looks nothing like the big, larger-than-life personality she’s known for the last eleven years.
She holds out her hand, and Wes takes it, and somehow he’s able to get to his feet.
His shoulders slump in relief. Using his good arm, he pulls her into an embrace, and this time she doesn’t fight it.
She leans into him, and for a moment they are holding each other up.
She smells the familiar scent of his aftershave intermixed with the stink of sweat and fear.
“Give me the gun, Madeline,” he whispers.
“It’s going to be okay now. I’ll take good care of you. ”
Madeline feels the cool metal of the gun pressed between them and tips the barrel upward, feels it settle into the soft spot
just below Wes’s sternum, and pulls the trigger.