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“To do what? I can tell you from experience, he would have figured out you weren’t Emily pretty freaking fast.”
“Oh, he did,” Timofey says. “Almost immediately. I made it through the door and halfway across the room before he started ranting and yelling for me to leave. It probably had something to do with the fact that he was already ‘ready,’ if you know what I mean.”
I hold up a stiff finger. “Readyready?”
Timofey nods. “I caught him with his pants down in a real way, and he didn’t love it. He told me to get the fuck out, but I wanted to talk. Especially since I had the upper hand. Except, I didn’t really. Because I had no idea that he had a gun stashed in his bedside drawer.”
My eyes go wide. Timofey is sitting in front of me whole and well, but I’m terrified for the teenage version of him. “He shot you?!”
“He tried,” he admits. “But he was lying down and, like I said, there was a certain part of his body between the two of us. Somehow, the guy whipped his gun around, pulled the trigger, and managed to hit that very small target.”
I inhale so sharply I almost choke. “He shot his own—”
“Grazed,” Timofey corrects, barely stifling a laugh. “It was a graze. But based on the way he screamed, you’d think he blew the thing off. He called the ambulance and spent the night in the hospital. Cried like a bitch the whole time.”
I toss my head back and laugh. But after a second, I look back at him. “I love an adult male predator getting his dose of karma as much as the next person, but that still isn’t a happy memory exactly.”
“No, that part isn’t happy. But the asshole spent the night in the emergency room,” Timofey said. “So his room was empty… His room, which was furnished with a double bed and a fridge full of food and beer. He also had the only television in the entire building.”
“You kept the place warm for him?” I guess.
“Well, we didn’t want all of that food to go bad.” He smirks and his eyes go glassy, reliving the old memory. “We ate enough day-old Chinese food and frozen ice cream bars to make ourselves sick. Then we watched some cheesy horror movie and fell asleep in the big bed. It was still a dump, but compared to what we’d been living in, it felt like a palace.”
I smile sadly. “Memories from childhood are like that. I had an old lace curtain that hung around my bed like a canopy. It was moth-eaten and stained, but it felt so magical.”
“Emily said the same thing that night. She said it was like a fairytale.” His chest hitches with a breathy laugh, and I can hear the fondness he had for Emily. The fondness he still has for her.
“Okay, fine. That’s a happy memory,” I admit. “But what happened when he came back?”
Timofey shrugs. “We left early the next morning. We knew we weren’t going to be welcomed back. But last I heard, the place was shut down, then torn down. Just an empty lot now. It’s gone. All of it.”
Including Emily.
He doesn’t need to say it. I can hear the words in his somber tone.
Whatever temporary moment of levity the happy memory brought him, the payment seems to be a reminder of how many unhappy moments have come since then.
“I bet Emily was grateful,” I say, trying to swing the pendulum back to the positive. “Things could have been a lot worse if you hadn’t been there to protect her.”
His brows knit together. Something unsaid passes over his face and a chill settles over the moment that leaves the hairs on my arms standing tall. I’ve never been one to believe in ghosts, but I believe in them now.
Emily may be dead, but she’s in this room.
Timofey can see her, too.
“You protected her as well as you could.” I want to comfort him, but this particular coin has two sides. I can’t help but flip it. “Didn’t you?”
Timofey snaps his attention to me. His eyes are a searing shade of blue. “I’ve answered that question, Piper.”
“I didn’t mean—I mean, I wasn’t saying—”
“You were doing everything but say it,” he growls. “Still, after everything, you want to know if I killed her.”
Yes. Tell me the truth. Please.
“I know you loved her,” I say. “You took care of her like a sister. You’re taking care of her son now. But…you had a falling out. I could understand if something changed. If you had no other choice.”
There is always another choice when murder is on the table. Still, I tell the lie because the truth would be too hard to fathom.
