AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Great job,” he said. The sarcasm dripped off him as he stared bluntly at the gun. He sighed. “Well, do it if that’s what you want.”
Did he have no self-preservation instinct? I knew he did. He wouldn’t have been so careful, so meticulous if he didn’t care about his fate. But I knew why he wasn’t troubled. We both knew. I couldn’t shoot him.
I turned the gun on myself, and for the first time since this drama had started, Shannon looked scared.
“Elodie, point the gun back at me,” he said urgently.
“So you know I won’t shoot you, but you’re not so sure about whether or not I’ll shoot myself.”
And then it happened. Shannon cried. They were silent stealth tears creeping down his cheeks, but I knew he felt them drip down and fall off his face.
“I can’t lose you, Elodie. You’re the only thing human I have to hold onto. If I don’t have you, then I don’t know what anything feels like. I need you with me. I need you to translate all the things I can’t feel.”
“What good could that possibly do? You couldn’t even process my guilt over killing an innocent person.”
“I’m not stupid, goddammit! I know how you felt. I just can’t feel the same thing directly.”
An unjust mercy. I should be the one who could happily skip along without a ripple.
“Maybe you will if I pull the trigger. Maybe this is the final lesson in how to be a real person. How to feel actual pain and empathy.”
The expression on his face was like a wounded animal, looking at his attacker in disbelief. “You knew what I was. I never lied or pretended with you. I let you see it all.”
And then, against all I thought I was capable of, I pulled the trigger. Instinctively I flinched, but nothing happened. The chamber had been empty. Shannon lunged for me, and the gun slipped out of my hands as his full weight settled on top of me on the bed.
“Is this how it’s going to be now? Am I going to have to keep you on suicide watch?” he asked, his breathing coming out wild and heavy.
“I can’t live with what I’ve done. I can’t stop seeing the things you’ve done.”
“I won’t involve you ever again. I shouldn’t have brought you along this time. I thought I was doing something good for you so you could get your revenge.”
In fairness to him, I’d thought it was something good for me, too. I’d thought I needed to not just be told or hear that Stevens was gone, but to see it happen with my own eyes, to watch him struggle, to absorb his fear out of the air as if it might energize and sustain me. To watch the light go out of his eyes and see for myself that he couldn’t hurt anybody else again and that he’d gotten what he deserved. But the actual cold reality of death and murder wasn’t the glamourized fantasy of the movies with no emotional consequences. It was harsh, brutal, awkwardly violent, and poisonous to all who participated.
Except that Shannon didn’t seem affected. How could he be? I was sure he didn’t have a soul to damage. He was impervious to all this inconvenient humanity.
“But you’re not going to stop doing it,” I said.
“Of course not. I told you... everybody I kill deserves to die.”
“But not that woman,” I said.
“I didn’t kill her.”
“But you would have. She would have been collateral damage.”
“I was too focused on the results and not focused enough on the planning. It was because I cared more this time. But yes, I would have done what was necessary. Whatever you believe, I’m sorry you had to make that choice tonight. But I’m glad you made it. Aren’t you glad you made it? Would you rather I go to prison?”
“I don’t know anymore. I don’t think I can live with who you are. Or with who I am now.”
“You’re the same. One moment doesn’t change that.”
“It changes everything.”
Shannon eased off me, and pulled me into his arms. I thought at first he might squeeze me to death, he was holding me so tight.
“I wish I could take this for you,” he said, quietly. “I could handle it. I would take the guilt and pain so you wouldn’t have to feel it.”
“I wouldn’t have to feel anything if you’d let me...”
