PANDORA
The rest of the night is a blur. Firefighters, cops, EMTs, ambulances.
Blaze’s entire face, covered in blood.
I slip away from the EMTs before they can force me to the hospital.
I lost River’s finger.
I lost Blaze’s eye.
I drive to Blaze and River and Asch’s house. I park down the block, and then I reach below the driver’s seat to pull out Papa’s present to me.
A business card.
A gun.
I heft the gun and check the chamber. Six bullets. I could have taken care of John Allers with a single bullet.
That would have been faster. It would have been easier.
He wouldn’t have suffered, but neither would the rest of us.
Blaze would have kept his eye.
My phone buzzes and buzzes. I ignore it as I stare at the gun.
Who did Papa want me to use it on? My enemies, the note said, but he doesn’t even know who they are.
The worst enemy is thethump-thump-thumpof my heart.
Why does it hurt so much? It’s not allowed to hurt. That’s why I don’t have a heart. Nothing hurts if I don’t feel anything, if I’m just some wild, manic creature who doesn’t care about the consequences and lets the world burn around her.
I blink, and tears fall from my eyes.
This is me now. I’m crying, because Blaze’s beautiful face was marred—all thanks to me and my stupid, insane, fucking crazy schemes.
Anastasia had given us that warning.
I could have left. I could have run.
But I needed to see Allers suffer, all for fucking what?
I lift the gun up and aim it through my windshield, then up at the mirror.
The easiest way to make sure River, Asch, and Blaze never get hurt again is to get rid of the one hurting them.
Maybe Rachel wouldn’t even have gone to some stupid college tour and hung out with stupid Zayden if she’d trusted me more. If I had been better at listening, and actually paid attention to her problems instead of dragging her along to cause new ones.
“Probably not what you meant when you gave me this gun, huh, Papa?” I say with a sardonic smile. “But Pandora isn’t immortal. She was probably consumed by all the horrors she unleashed on the world, too.”
I’ll make such a mess if I do this in the car. Blood and brain everywhere, and poor River and Asch and Blaze will need to clean it up on top of everything.
They’d be really pissed at me then.
I sigh and put the safety on, then get out of the car and head into the house. The spare key they’d given me works like a charm, and I take my dirty scrubs off before I track soot into the nice and clean home.
I take everything to the basement and run the laundry to clean upthe mess. There’s no reason to leave DNA evidence behind if I don’t need to. The gun clatters on top of the laundry machine.
