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to block him, to go for the gun, and as I do my hand grazes my face in the process. Bile rises in my throat. What was once my jawline is now just flesh hanging.
“It’s okay,” he says, shoving me toward the sofa. “None of it will matter when you’re dead.”
“You don’t—”
“Now is not the time for bargaining…” He strikes another match. “Really, you should be thanking me. At least she won’t have to see you like this.”
My brow furrows, giving me away. I don’t mean for it to happen. My poker face has a habit of betraying me where she is concerned. Automatic response is inevitable, and if distraction is his weakness, she is mine.
I’m half-seated, half-slumped on the couch when he pulls the gun from his waistband and aims it at my head. “I thought you’d be more comfortable here.” He motions toward the notepad beside me. “Now write.”
“You might as well just shoot me.”
Before the sound of the gun firing registers, I feel the white-hot searing pain. Before I feel the white-hot searing pain, I see bone fragments fly from my kneecap. The blood makes me realize I should have made an effort.
Later, when I come to, I hear a mewling sound somewhere deep in the belly of the house. Maybe it’s her. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m dead, and maybe this is hell.
He’s seated cross-legged on the floor in front of me, gripping the gun in one hand, picking pieces of bone out of the carpet with the other. “The things you make me do.”
I watch as he spreads the pieces of my knee out in front of him and begins fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. “Not bad, eh?” He flashes a smile. “What do you think?”
What I’m thinking is maybe it’s impossible to survive a man like him.
“Now that you’re awake,” he says, “it’s time to finish the story.”
“I—”
“Don’t. Remember? You promised.”
He’s right. I did promise.
That’s how this started.
“You finish it,” I say.
“That would negate the purpose of all of this—of me shooting you in the knee—of me wasting my precious time trying to help your ass out of a very big jam.” He shakes his head. “And look at the thanks I get.” That smile of his, the one that has undoubtedly always gotten him what he wants, he flashes it. “You really wouldn’t want this to have all been for nothing, would you?”
I type a few words out just to see what comes to mind. This is not how it ends.
“You see, George. This is good.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Now you’re learning to finish what you start.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Flames lick my skin. Metaphorical flames at first and then real ones. Meanwhile, I type and I type and I type. Liam tells me he wants to see what it’s like to watch a person burn to death. Slowly, apparently.
“That’s an okay start,” he says, glancing over my shoulder at my screen. “Now, keep going.”
Nothing will satisfy him, I realize. I can only keep going, trying to cross some invisible finish line. He lights match after match, putting it out on my skin. At the same time, he asks absurd questions. I answer them in hopes that it will buy me some time. In hopes that it will save Eve.
Another match lit, another flame put out. This time behind my ear. I have no leverage here, hardly a shot at seeing daylight. It strikes me as odd that all of my sunrises are now behind me. All that’s left are my words and the answers he demands.
Liam is careful with the matches. One wrong move and the room goes up in flames. Empty lighter fluid bottles are littered across the floor. “How many ribs are in a human body?”
I type a sentence and delete. Nothing seems right when you know the words are going to be your last. “Twenty-four.”
“How many joints?”
“In the body?”
