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His gaze shifts, hands clenching. Marcel is not the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but I see them now, etched clearly in the tension of his whole body. It’s as though Ava is pulling the trigger on herself. He finally steps up to her, takes her heart-shaped face in his hands.
He presses his forehead to hers.
“Tell me that you’re sure,” he whispers.
“I’m sure.”
I think it hurts him more than it comforts him.
“Marcel,” I say, trying my goddamn hardest to be easy with him. “I’ve seen grown men with less conviction when I’ve put a gun in their hand.”
“Just get it over with,” he finally relents, turning away from all of us.
I hand the pistol over. Ava takes it, adjusting her grip around its weight. I ease her up to the man on the ground. She levels the gun on him. In the resounding silence, he starts to curse and spit, flying between rage and horror, sobbing openly for his mother. Ava doesn’t flinch. She takes her aim.
“It’ll kick,” I warn her, steadying her wrist for her, showing her how to hold it with both hands. I brace her against me. “When you’re ready.”
She doesn’t hesitate.
The gun fires and buries the bullet clean between his eyebrows. His last yell is cut short in the ringing aftermath. The body slumps, silent and still. Blood rivers out of his nose. The room goes silent.
We all wait, as if something might happen, as if she might break down. She pulls the trigger again. The gun only clicks; it had only the single round. She squeezes the trigger again and again, as if she can kill him a dozen times over. Finally, she gives up trying. Her eyes burn, but not with tears.
“You did well,” I tell her.
When she offers the empty gun back to me, her hands are rock steady.
“It’s yours, Ava. You keep your first, and you never shoot it again.”
Marcel pulls her back. He clutches her to him, holding her desperately against him. She doesn’t cry.
“Come on,” he whispers, taking the gun from her and tucking her under his arm. He doesn’t look at me again as he leads her out.
Tessa stands at the opposite end of the dungeon, staring at the body. Two weeks ago, I had planned for her to stand in this very spot. I thought I could feed her the horror like it was poison, and I could make her immune to it, numbed the way the rest of us are. But a part of me understands Marcel. I want to scoop her up and protect her from all of it, even if I know it would do more damage than good.
Leo drags the body past us. Tessa turns away, pressing her hand to her mouth.
“I need to call him,” she whispers, without moving, her eyes trailing over the ones who remain. “I need to call my father again.”
“It won’t do any good, Tessa. Look how well he listened to you last time. Even if he agreed to terms, we’d never be able to trust him at his word—”
“They need a doctor,” she insists.
“I can’t do that.”
“You can’t or you won’t?” she asks, turning on me. “What good does it do anybody, keeping them like this?”
“If they want help, they have information they can exchange for it. Those are the rules.”
“What information?” she asks, a note of desperation filling her voice, as if she would happily trade anything for them.
“Anything useful and verifiable. Shipping routes and schedules. Government contacts. Safe houses.” The despair creeps into her face one deepening word after the other. Just like I suspected, Tessa doesn’t know any of that.
“Let’s go, Tessa.”
“Let me talk to them,” she insists.
“Why? So you can blame yourself when the next person gets hurt? What do you think I would do with the information even if you got it for me?”
