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“You’re insane! You’re fucking insane! Let me out of this car right now!” she continues to scream as I pick up speed.
She’s sobbing into her hands now, and I can’t help but feel that I’m halfway to accomplishing my goal. Showing Vera that I’m willing to play dirty will encourage her to cooperate with me. If I was willing to run over her boyfriend in a blind rage, what could I do with more time to plan?
I do wish she’d stop screaming, but I figure this is part of the process. Maybe forcing her to sit with her horror will get her to talk faster.
Whoever decided to take her on as a spy is a fool, but that only means I’ll have an easier time finding them. As soon as I look her in the eyes again, she’ll cave. She might not be like the rich kids on campus, but she’s still soft and incapable of standing up to people who scare her.
“How the hell are you going to explain all of this? You came up to me first at the fair, and you’re mysteriously here at the site of my brother’s death when his body is still warm? Don’t insult me with lies, Vera,” I say. “It’s too late for that now.”
She tries to open her door to escape, but I lock it from my side. “You don’t get to run away from me,” I growl.
She bursts into tears again, her bottom lip quivering as the gravity of the situation grows heavier on her shoulders.
If I don’t get to escape from my pain, she doesn’t get to escape from her fear.
“Ruslan, I don’t know how else to explain myself. I was just at the gas station waiting for Eric,” she cries. “We weren’t there for longer than ten minutes.”
I don’t want to think about the things I’ll have to do to get the truth out of her. She still believes that playing sweet will convince me or win me over, but that chance is long gone.
The scenery around us begins to melt and shift as I pick up speed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up hitting someone else at this rate.
It doesn’t matter. I have nothing to live for anymore. No more family, nobody to love, nothing to hold me here. I’m going to die the way my brother would have wanted if he had been given the choice.
I only wish I knew what that would have looked like for him.
Vera is hyperventilating now, and I’m convinced that she’s going to pass out or throw up. I prefer that she pass out in order to keep her quiet and conceal our destination. I doubt she’ll be able to last much longer under such extreme stress.
I’ll bet that before this week, finals were the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
Giving her a reality check is exhilarating for me.
It’s monstrous of me to feel that way, but if there were ever a time for me to unleash my true brutality, it’s now. I’ve spent my whole life concealing how angry I am at the world, and now there’s nothing holding me back.
“There’s still time for you to turn around,” she begs between sobs. “Please, I won’t report you or anything. I’ll say I don’t know who you are. You don’t have to do this.”
I’m deaf to her pleas. If screaming at a brick wall will make her feel better, then by all means. But I’ve made up my mind, whether Yan approves or not.
We exit the city onto the highway, and now I have a much better chance of escaping from any stray law enforcement like Yan was so worried about. He should know that I’m far more capable of outrunning the cops than he thinks, especially since he’s the one who taught me how to do it.
“You might want to start talking real fucking soon if you don’t want to end up in a barrel of acid,” I say. “If you give up the right person, you can still save yourself. Don’t be an idiot, Vera.”
She slumps down against the seat, clutching her purse to her chest and biting down on the strap as she weeps.
Now that she realizes that I’m not going to back down, all I have to do is wait for her to break.
As I continue barreling down the highway at over a hundred miles an hour, my own life flashes before my eyes. I see scattered memories of Misha and me as kids, running around in the woods near our house before we knew the evils of the world.
I think of everyone I’ve lost over the years, some of which I had to let go of willingly. I see my mother’s face, watching me from the front door as I run to meet her after getting out of school for the week.
My life wasn’t perfect, but it was worth living.
The sound of the engine blares in my ears, but it doesn’t register to me at all. I’m so lost in a trance of grief and reflection that I can’t hear Vera crying either.
For the first time since the shooting, the inside of my head is totally at peace.
I’m going to die, but I’ll be with my brother soon.
The road stretches on infinitely in front of me, and I wonder to myself when I’ll finally feel ready to run the car off the road into a concrete divider. I hadn’t thought through any of this before taking off toward the gas station, but now death seems ideal.
