“Tell them what?” I goad him, preparing my stance the way my father taught me at the shooting range back in high school. “Steady legs and tight, strong torso gives you the most control,” he said, and even though I never thought I’d have to use his advice, I’d never forgotten it.
“That you kidnapped me,” Tyler says, taking one more step toward me. We’re less than six feet away from each other now. “At gunpoint, no less.” He waits, trying to stare me down. “I think that might be even more jail time than rape.”
When I hear him suggest that it would be me who would be incarcerated instead of him, the fury inside me explodes, blotting out any restraint I might have left. This is not the Tyler who sat by my hospital bed, helping me find my way back from my own personal hell. This is not the Tyler who saved me from drowning. That Tyler is gone—he disappeared the night he yanked down my panties and speared me until I bled. This Tyler, the one who stands in front of me now, is pure evil, a spiteful, monstrous doppelg?nger of the boy who was once my best friend.
With this realization, I meet his intense gaze with one of my own, and in that moment, everything changes. My breathing slows, and my body relaxes. I’m no longer afraid. No longer unsure. I feel calm. Full of resolve. I know exactly what has to happen next.
“Go to hell,” I say. And then, just as he lunges toward me, his arms outstretched, I put my finger on the trigger, take aim, and shoot.
Tyler
The bullet from Amber’s gun tears through my right shoulder, causing me to cry out and topple onto the dusty floor. The acrid stench of gunpowder fills the air. The pain is unbearable—a searing sensation my mind can barely process. I can’t move.
“Motherfucker,” I say, spitting the word through tight lips. She shot me. My best friend had done the one thing I didn’t believe she would do. I lie on my left side, in agony, but manage to lift my free hand up against my shoulder, knowing I need to apply pressure to the wound.
“Say it,” Amber says, standing above me, still holding the gun. “Admit what you did. Say you’ll go to the police.” She sounds like a maniacal windup doll, a haunting creature created for a horror movie, repeating the same words over and over again.
I squeeze my eyes shut. My deltoid muscle is on fire; I can feel blood oozing down my back, and I hope this means the bullet isn’t lodged somewhere inside my shoulder, wreaking havoc on my joint. I might be okay if it went straight through, though it still could have bounced off the bone on the way out. It’s possible I’ll suffer nerve damage and maybe even lose partial function in my arm.
“Answer me!” Amber shrieks. “Tell me you’ll do what I want and I’ll drive you to a hospital right now!”
“First . . . get the aid kit . . . from my truck,” I say, trying to ignore the seething heat radiating from my shoulder as it travels throughout the rest of my body. The metallic smell of my own blood is sickening; I can taste it in the back of my throat.
“No!”
“Please, Amber!” My words come out in short bursts, as I try to handle the pain by controlling my breath. “At least . . . give me something . . . a towel or a blanket . . . anything to stop . . . the bleeding.”
“Why should I?” she asks. “You might not be able to see my wounds, Tyler, but you tried to kill me first.”
She’s not in her right mind, I think. The Amber I know would never have pulled that trigger. I’d tried to remain calm since we first climbed into my truck at the station. I didn’t want to aggravate the situation by challenging her. I didn’t want my own anxiety to make the situation worse. But when we got inside the cabin, I decided to change tactics. I thought I could intimidate her. I could force her down from the precarious ledge she’d been standing upon—I thought I might be able to convince her to capitulate and let me go.
“I’m sorry,” I say, grinding my teeth. “I never—”
“If you say you never meant to hurt me one more time, Tyler, I swear to god I’ll shoot you in the head.” Her voice is calm again. Too calm, I think. I’ve never seen her act this way. I have no idea what she might do next. I think about my training, how I’d been taught to deal with mentally unstable people in the field. Make them believe they’re winning, my instructors always said. Keep them calm, let them think that you’re on their side.
“Okay,” I say, looking up at her, my left hand still pressing where the bullet entered my shoulder. “I get it. But please . . . something to stop . . . the bleeding.”
“Not until you promise to turn yourself in.”
Had this been her plan, all along? Bring me to a secluded place, and then shoot me to make me confess? “Fine,” I say. I’ll tell her whatever she needs to hear just so we can end this. “I promise.”
“You’ll go to the police with me? You’ll tell them you raped me?”
I nod, biting my bottom lip, willing to concede anything to get her to help me.
She hesitates, and then walks a circle around me, out of my reach, toward the kitchen, where she rummages around in a few of the drawers until she comes up with a sealed plastic box filled with dish towels. She returns to where I am lying with a stack of them, and throws them at me. “You have to do it.” Her voice is dull now. Defeated. “You have to admit what you did.”
I pull back my hand from my shoulder and try to gauge how much blood I’ve lost by looking at it, but there’s no way to be sure. It’s possible the bullet nicked the brachial artery, and if it did, I need to get to an ER sooner rather than later. I take a couple of the towels and press them hard against my shoulder, managing to sit up and lean against the side of the couch.
“I know,” I say. I worry I might pass out from the pain. But there’s no way Amber can carry me to the truck; I need to stay alert long enough for her to get us back on the road. I look at her, and try to keep the rage I feel from showing on my face. “I still need the first aid kit . . . from my truck. There’s a special kind of gauze . . . that will make a gel and . . . seal off the wound. I’ll need your help . . . wrapping it up.”
“I should have aimed for your heart,” she says, but there is no energy behind her words.
“Amber,” I say. My breathing is still erratic. “Please. The kit.”
She bobs her head, and then disappears out the front door, returning a few minutes later with the large red bag from under the driver’s seat. It isn’t your standard, pick-it-up-at-Target kind of kit. I’d packed it myself with the same supplies that Mason and I use on our rig and in the field. She drops it at my feet, and I notice that she’s no longer holding the gun. Should I hit her? I wonder. Should I knock her down and make a run for the truck? Should I just leave her behind?