“You shouldn’t be here, Zeth,” she whispers, her voice cracking.
“What’s happened, Sophie? Where’s Charlie?”
The Duchess just looks at me, face completely blank. Her eyes are welling with tears, a darker blue than usual and filled with a distant pain. I don’t really know what I should do. Something terrible has obviously happened; she has to be in shock. I take a step forward and her face instantly transforms, shattering into a mask of grief and horror. She starts to sob, covering her face with her hands. Her blood-covered hands. The wickedly sharp knife she’s brandishing is dangerously close to her face.
"Hey, hey, come on. Come on.” I take the three steps toward her just as her legs collapse out from underneath her. I catch her before she hits the floor, holding her underneath the arms like a child. “Tell me, Sophie. Tell me what’s happened.”
She sobs into my chest, her skin sticking to my shirt with the tacky, almost dry blood that’s mottled all over her fingers and her palms. “I know. I know, I know...” she says, over and over again. “I know!” She rears back then, and her hand flashes out, surprising me. She slaps me so hard that my ear rings. “I know. I know all about him. And I know about you, too!” She tries to slap me again, but I grab hold of her wrist. Maybe I was a little ahead of myself just now. It seems as though Sophie might not think Charlie’s an accountant anymore. And she apparently knows my role in Charlie’s organization, too. For thirty years, she’s been by Charlie’s side. Thirty years and she’s only just learning the truth of him now.
“Who’s blood is this?” I ask, shaking her by the shoulders.
She stops struggling, pausing to look up at me, and the mania leaves her eyes. A certain clarity replaces it. “It’s yours,” she says.
“What?”
“It’s yours. Yours and mine, Zeth. We…oh, we are the greatest fools on the face of this earth.”
I look down, confused, trying to see what the hell she’s talking about. A ripple of horror travels through me when I see where the knife is—buried up to the hilt in my side. I can’t feel it. I can’t feel it buried inside me. I can’t feel a thing.
“Sophie…”
“I'm sorry, Zeth,” she whispers. She raises her hand to stroke the side of my face. Her wrist is mangled, torn to shreds and pumping her blood out with a determined force that will see her dead very soon. Very, very soon. “But some injustices are too grave to forgive.” That clarity that possessed her eyes a moment ago fades, and the rest of her seems to fade with it. The strength leaves her limbs, her body falling limp in my arms. I tense, catching hold of her again, and a wave of pain rockets through me—the knife. The sight of the knife embedded in my stomach has been nothing more than a visual illusion until now, but the teeth of the pre-warmed steel have started to bite, telling me that the blade is very real and hell bent on killing me. Of all the people...of all the fucking people...
The Duchess sags to the floor in a boneless heap. She’s not quite dead, but she will be soon. I touch the handle sticking out of my stomach, and a cold, calm voice echoes inside my head. “Don’t touch it. Don’t take it out.”
So I don’t. I turn and I walk out of the room, out of Charlie’s house. Sam and Paddy have vanished, along with their sedan. Charlie’s neighbor, his sometimes golf buddy, is across the street, mowing his lawn.
“Hey, there!” he calls, waving. Smiling. Mowing. Fucking Ralph Lauren polo shirt and chinos. “How’s the day go—oh! Oh, god. Are you—is everything—”
I slam the door on the Camaro, cutting off his surprise at seeing me trailing blood across his neighborhood. The car roars. My head is fucking spinning. The world grows bright and then dims, black spots dancing in my vision. This pain is an old friend. An old friend come to stay this time, it would seem. Perhaps I’ll make it out of this godforsaken fucking neighborhood before I can’t see anything at all. I gun the engine, spin the steering wheel, and I burn out of the place before I bleed out and die in motherfucking suburbia.