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I don’t even have time to anticipate what comes next.
He shoves Penny down to her knees, puts the gun to her temple, and fires.
Blood rains down on us. Avery’s mouth is stuck open wide in a silent scream that becomes a real scream. The captor gives a little nod—a job well done, he seems to say. His hand is still wound up in the dead girl’s hair. He gives it an experimental tug, then uses it to drag Penny’s lifeless body out of the room, leaving a thick smear of blood in her wake. The slam of the door is like another gunshot.
Then click. Click. Click. The fourth lock hits home, and I burst out of my skin.
Avery’s still screaming, but she runs with me, the sound tearing through my soul. I meet her at the door, and we pound on it like we have a chance. My fist sings, then screams with her. I only hit harder.We have to get out of here. We have to get out of here.If it’s Avery with a bullet through her head next, then everything is over for me.
The door doesn’t give, and stars explode in the front of my mind. I switch to the cinder block walls, clawing at them. My fingernails chip and shatter. Avery’s scream lengthens to a howl, and the next time I look at her, she has bloodied fists. There is nothing but her howling. There is nothing but her despair.
“He killed her,” she shrieks. “He killed her, he shot her, he killed her—”
I try to gather her in my arms and hold her tight, the way she likes, but she’s wild, a whirlwind, and she twists out of my arms. I pound the door with her until my skin splits. Until we’re both breathing hard. Until we both back away, reality setting in.
We’re never getting out of here alive.
He will just keep going and going and going until we’re empty shells. Worse than empty shells. Until we’re rapists and murderers, and we don’t even care anymore. It won’t make a dent. No impact. No escape.
Avery grabs my hand and pulls me toward her. For once, her breathing is steady, but she puts my arms around her anyway and gets as close as she can.
“Tighter.” The steel in her voice gets lighter and floats away. “Rome.”
The way she says my name tells me everything I need to know. “We can’t stay. Do you know what I’m saying?”
“I know,” I tell her.
“We have to leave this place. We have to be free.”
“I know.” I take her face in my hands. “How do you want to do it?”
A thousand possibilities flash through my mind. It’ll be fucking tricky, getting us both off the earth without one of us getting left behind. We’ll have to work out the finer details. We’ll have to plan them, and then we’ll have to be ready to follow through. We’ll have to jump into a black pit with no bottom, with no end. I’ll have her hand in mine, and the pills from my pocket, and that’s it.
There’s only one answer.
“Together.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
AVERY
Together.
Rome’s voice echoes in my head, over and over, until there is only a constant wash of sound. The pain from my IUD burns across my entire belly, but it’s easier to ignore now that I know we have a plan. And we do have a plan. I saw it in his eyes. He knows.
I go to roll over on the mattress and discover I’m already flat on my back, eyes fixed upon a dark ceiling. How did that happen? Was it that last little burst of pain I felt minutes ago? Or was it hours ago?
I did something to my hands when I tried to beat down the door. They’re covered in dried blood, my fingertips raw and throbbing, nails stripped down to stubs. Oh, well. It doesn’t matter anymore. Now that I know what comes next, I think of this place as some kind of limbo, an in-between for our damned souls. I think I died the night I turned twenty-five at that stupid party. I think I fell into that pool along with my father, a bullet in my heart, and bled out in the cold water under a starless San Francisco sky.
At least, I wish that was what had become of me. What a merciful end that would have been. They would have printed my name in big letters on the front page ofThe New York Times. There would have been a funeral and vases full of blood red roses. Maybe Rome would have even come along to spit on the door of the Capulet mausoleum, after my dead body was sealed in nice and tight with all the other dead people I’ve been grieving most of my life.
A girl can dream of a better death, can’t she?
I suppose there is one thing I’m grateful for in all of this. One person. He’s lying beside me, his blue eyes clouded with worry. He thinks I’m going mad.Baby, I’m not going mad. I’m already there.
“What are you laughing at?” His hand comes down on the inside of my elbow, fingertips light. “Aves. What’s funny?”
“Ships can sink so fast,” I whisper. It’s not that I’m laughing, not really. It’s not funny. Sinking ships are not a laughing matter. The sound that is coming from me is a laugh that should be a sob. “You don’t have to wait as long to die. You just drown. You know?”
