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“Eddie knows. Brad's father paid us a visit after his trial. Eddie ruined his life when he helped with Brad's conviction so he decided to ruin ours and told Eddie not only about his “interest” in Dylan all those years ago but that I knew of it.”
“Uncle Eddie knows about my mom, about the rape?”
Her crazy gaze drilled into me. “It wasn't rape. Bradley claimed she came onto him.”
“That's bullshit. It was rape and you damn well know it. You let her believe a lie. I know the doubts she was feeling: the worry over whether she was somehow responsible. You tried to do the same to me. The difference was I had people who loved me and assured me that it wasn't my fault, but you used her demons against her. You broke her. You killed her! And in the process you broke the heart of the man you claim to love. Even worse, you allowed him to believe the lie: to believe that the woman he loved didn't love him back.”
Her demeanor changed as a sadness came into her expression. She looked almost normal. “It doesn't matter now.” she whispered.
“What are you going to do?”
“I've nothing left.” Shesaid, defeated.
“What about Deena and Carol?”
“They're better off without me.”She reached into her purse and pulled out a gun. My heart moved into my throat and my feet seemed to root themselves right to the floor with my fear.
“Aunt Kim, why do you have a gun?”
“Why should you have it all, Dylan?”
“I'm not my mother.”
But my words had fallen on deaf ears. I had never known fear like I felt in that moment. There I was looking at the instrument of my own death. In the next second, Reaper attacked my aunt. The sound of the gun echoed through the house, followed by Reaper's whimper before he dropped to his side.
“No!”
I lunged toward my aunt, not really thinking only acting out of fear and fury. A second shot sounded before a pain ripped through my shoulder. I was knocked back into the wall, my shoulder on fire as warm blood rolled down my arm.
Sanity seemed to come over my aunt, seeing me bleeding from a wound she inflicted. “What have I done?” Her pleading eyes met mine. “What have I done?”
“Put the gun down, please.”
Instead of my words making her see reason, her sanity slipped as madness returned. “I've got nothing left.”
Determination replaced confusion as she lifted the gun and leveled it at me even though I knew it was my mom she was seeing. So many images flashed before my eyes and every one of them was of Bastian. In the final moments of my life, he was all I could think about: how much I loved him and how devastated he was going to be when he came home expecting to find me and instead learning I was...
I begged at that moment, would have gotten on my knees if I could have. “Please, I don't want to die. Please, don't do this. I'm not my mother. I found the love you felt for Uncle Eddie. Please don't take me away from him, don't do to him what you believe my mother did to you.”
The hand that held the gun shook but a calmness settled over her. For just a moment, I thought it was over, that she had finally stepped back from the edge of madness. And then she turned the gun on herself.
“No!” But my voice was drowned out by the shot. Her head jerked back before her body crumpled to the floor. Her face, what was left of it, landed facing my direction and her life-less eyes seemed to stare eerily into mine. I threw up, twisting my body, I vomited until my stomach cramped.
Shock had settled in, a welcomed numbness that sort of blurred the reality of what I had just witnessed. I crawled to Reaper, felt him breathing, and couldn't help the tears of relief that rolled down my cheeks to feel him breathing. I needed to call my dad but my limbs were growing heavy and I knew unconsciousness loomed. With the amount of blood I had lost, maybe it wasn't unconsciousness but something far worse.
The thought of leaving Bastian wrenched me more than even the gunshot wound—him having to pick up the pieces alone, having to watch as I was placed into the ground, his knowledge that a full lifetime would be stretched out before him where he would have to learn to live without me.
My head filled with visions of him, his face, his smile, his voice, his body over mine as he moved so deeply inside of me. And those eyes that had the power to see past all of my defenses. I wanted to see him one last time, wanted that more than I've ever wanted anything in my life.
And then I heard the familiar sound of my car moments before the front door opened and I heard him call, his voice sounded oddly worried.
“Lark!”
He ran into the room and then I watched as his face paled. He reached me in two strides and dropped down right in front of me, looking both fierce and terrified, as he pulled off his shirt and tried to staunch the flow of blood.
“I don't want to die.”
His expression turned harsh, “You are not going to die. Do you hear me, Lark? You are not going to die.” He grabbed his phone from his pocket and called 911. “I need a fucking ambulance.”
