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I smash the rock against the glass face of the clock.
My hand trembles as I stare down at the broken timepiece. I release the rock back into the pile in the sack, flex my fingers. Sweat trickles down my temples. A bird flutters its wings too loudly.
The silence is unsettling.
A glimpse of Mary’s smiling face, then the image catches fire, smoldering into cracked, charred ash. All this time, I’ve held on to an ideal memory of her that shaped who I became.
A monster.
I hear Blakely’s voice as she says it, and I’m no longer denying the truth. Just as Blakely shamelessly accepts who she is, I accept who I’ve become.
When I emerge inside the chamber, I’ve been reborn. An all-new synthesis of a man. What I have to do has never been more clear.
I am a curer of disease.
My life’s work cannot succumb to one malady—one deviation in the design.
She’s my illness…and there’s no cure.
Elimination.
The loudthunkof the sack hitting the wood floor startles Blakely, and she looks up to find me in the one source of light beneath the bare bulb. She’s absorbed by the darkness of the room, but I can still make out her silhouette.
A thousand ticking hands, a thousand glass faces peering down, reflecting her beautiful face back at me.
I empty the sack of rocks.
“Alex, whatever you believe you have to do—”
“It’s no longer about what I believe.” I swoop down and select a stone from the pile. I turn the rock over as I inspect the smooth surface, the flaws. I chose this stone for her. I set it aside. It’s not yet time.
“You were right, Blakely,” I say. “Every beginning has an end, and we’ve reached ours.”
I hunt through the rocks and choose a larger rock, then I face the wall of floating clocks. I pitch the stone at the backlit clock in the center. The glass cracks, knocking the clock to the floor and shattering the face into shards.
“Willy Sturgis. Subject number one. Ten thirty-two P.M. was his expiration time.” I glance back at Blakely. “The time of his death. The time I killed him.”
Her knees are pulled to her chest, her eyes large and watching. She’s almost convincing of her helpless state, but I know better. She’s a temptress who will tear my throat out. She made me that promise.
I select another rock and lob it at the wall, striking the clock to the right. “Thomas Sanders. Subject two. I terminated his life at four twenty-seven.”
In a violent production, I continue to destroy the clocks. One by one, I break the faces that have hung in suspension since the conception of my project. Mary’s clock stares at me, the only other timepiece with frozen hands, the time displaying the moment I received the call of her murder.
I truly believed I was avenging her—that it was love for my twin sister that drove me to such extreme measures. Now, I wonder if denial for who she was, the choice to refuse to accept her character, was the driving force.
“In the end, we remained a reflection of each other, didn’t we?” I say out loud, laughing at the absurdity. My sister and I, twin monsters. Why didn’t Grayson come for me next?
Because that’s not who I was.
My fingers curl around the rock, gripping to the point of pain. I pitch the river stone at the clock and smash the glass, watching as the pendulum crashes to the floor. The room fades darker.
One rock left.
I pick it up and note the weight in my hand before I stalk toward Blakely.
No longer playing the victim, she slides up against the wall to stand before me. The thin shirt is still damp and clings to her body. She wraps her arms around her waist as she watches me cautiously.
We’re shrouded by darkness, nearly all light sources have gone extinct. I tap the bare bulb as I pass underneath, and the light swings back and forth. As I near Blakely, her face illuminates and then fades into shadow. Light, dark. Light, dark.
