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I found Eyeball’s body behind a creosote bush. I could tell it was him by the shaved head and the one white, one black eye staring blindly up into the sky. The sand beneath him was stained black in the moonlight, like motor oil was soaking the ground underneath him.
“He’s dead,” I called out.
No response.
“Fiona?”
Nothing.
“Don’t shoot, it’s me,” I called, and backtracked through the darkness.
As I did, I saw the remains of my cell phone on the ground. The screen was splintered into a thousand pieces reflecting the dim starlight above.
I picked it up and tried clicking the button. Nothing. Deader than Eyeball.
Lucky shot, asshole.
Too bad it was your last.
I found her on the ground, the Glock I’d given her in her right hand, her cell phone in her left, as she stared into the darkness.
“You called my phone?!” I asked. “That was fucking genius.”
She looked up at me, and I could see tiny glints of light reflected off the tears running down her cheeks.
“…I killed him?” she whispered.
Shit.
She’s probably never even hit somebody before, much less killed them.
I dropped to my knees and put my arms around her.
“No, no… I did,” I lied. “It wasn’t you, it was me. It wasn’t you.”
She didn’t believe me. I felt her tremble, sobbing, as I rocked her in my arms.
74
Fiona
I’d killed someone.
I knew he was trying to kill us, and that everything I’d done was justifiable – morally and legally –
But I thought it would feel different than this.
I thought I would feel like he deserved it. Like he’d brought it on himself. That it was his bad luck to fuck with the wrong person, and I just happened to be that person. That it was us or him – one of us was going to die, so it had damn well better be him.
You don’t feel bad when a scumbag dies in a car crash, right?
But I was the one who’d killed him.
And it felt awful.
I kept hearing his death rattle… the last breath leaving his body.
Jack cradled me soothingly in his arms, whispered to me, lied to me. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t even hit him.
