30. Everett
30
EVERETT
I can hear them.
Clawing. Thumping.
Like animals in the walls.
I watch the fire roar, and I imagine what it would be like to be inside of it. Flesh and muscle melting away from bone. Stripped clean of all our mortal follies: love, lust.
Hate.
Not for Claire. I could never hold hate for Claire. After all, this is on me.
I couldn’t have shepherded her better into his arms than if I were a dutiful collie and she a wayward sheep.
After all my lies and the deceit…how can I blame her for craving familiar comforts?
How can I fault her for clinging to her former flame, with his calloused hands and his messy hair and his stupid, charming, lopsided smile?
I hold the gun I took from the cornfield earlier. I can visualize the bullet inside of it, sleeping soundly in its chamber. I lift the gun and point it to the ceiling, directing it at the sounds. It clicks when I pull back the safety.
“Boom,” I hear myself say.
Then I tuck it underneath my chin. I point it at the noise in my brain. I close my eyes.
“Boom,” I repeat.
I press my thumb into the nodule and hear the safety click back on again. Only then do I lower it back to my side.
This is what she wants. To punish me.
My Claire would have made a great swordsman. She knows where to hit where it hurts.
And I don’t even have my headphones .
The fire pops. Claire moans. Ransom groans. My molars hurt. Like biting directly into the heart of an ice cube.
I begin to hum. Something. Anything. A song from my youth, maybe. I can’t quite place it. But the vibrations in my throat and in my ears soothe me.
The pain lessens. I grip my gun.
I dream about all the ways I’m going to end Riley Ransom’s life.