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“I think I want to stay,” I say, pulling my hand from her grip.“I think I’ve made a mistake.”
“You’re just scared,” she tells me.“It’s normal.”
“I think—”
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Elizabeth says.“Now, come on.”
“Hold up,” a familiar male voice says.Elizabeth and I both turn in the direction of the sound.I can’t be sure, because my future flashes in front of my eyes, but I’d be willing to bet our faces mirror one another as we come face to face with Dr.Branson.He moves toward us, looking like something out of a horror film, arms nearly straight out, dragging one leg behind him.“I wish I knew what the two of you were thinking.”
Two nurses and three orderlies gather behind him.Wagnon is not among them.
It’s at this second the truth of what I’m seeing catches up with me, and I know that one of us is going to have to use the gun—that if we’re going to get out of here, it is inevitable.We’re going to have to shoot our way out, or we’re going straight to solitary, straight to shock therapy, to hydrotherapy, to the surgery room, and most likely straight to hell.
I tell myself that it can work, that I can do it.But I also know that it will be difficult, that nothing will be the same, that whatever happens will be hard to live with.
“Stay right there,” Dr.Branson warns.“Don’t make a move.”
He sends an orderly toward us: Marlon, who’s my favorite.“Come on now, Ms.Elizabeth, let’s not make no trouble.”
“Too late,” she says, and the next thing I know she’s blowing out his kneecaps, first one and then the other.
I look at her standing beside me and I realize I have no idea who this person is or what she’s capable of.Everything that happens next happens so fast that it’s like watching a fast-moving train.One second it’s there in front of you, loud and rumbling, and the next second it’s gone.
Bradley steps around the corner.He stands directly behind Dr.Branson.At first I’m thinking maybe he can talk some sense into her, but then I realize that’s not what this is about at all.“Put down the gun, Lizzie,” he says.
“Mr.Duran told us what you were up to, Elizabeth.I have to admit, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
She looks at Bradley with a sad smile on her face.“You set me up.”
“I—I,” he stammers.“I didn’t want to lose my job.”
“Then I’m guessing you didn’t tell the whole story.”
In slow motion and then all at once, she shifts her attention, and she takes aim at Dr.Branson.“You should have stayed down,” she says.
And then she shoots him.A single shot, dead center.One and done.
There’s lots of screaming and commotion after that, and then she hands me the bag.
“Go,” she says.“Don’t worry.I’ve gotten out before.I’ll get out again.”
“No, you won’t.Not after this.”
“You have no idea what I’m made of, do you?”
“Elizabeth, no.”
She smiles.“Have a little faith, will you?”
A memory replays in my mind.This is what I said to her when we were first getting acquainted.
I know she is lying.But I want to believe.
Another memory.“Careful,” she said to me once.“All that hope, all those good intentions, they might just be your downfall.”
Unfortunately, they were hers.
“You need to go,” she says, and I should listen, but I don’t.
Instead, I watch as Elizabeth turns the gun on herself and pulls the trigger.
