“Did you do this to me? Was it you all along?” I demand, my voice rising a little more with each word that tumbles from my mouth. “Were you trying to make me crazy so that I would tell you everything about my past? Everything about William Vargas?”
“Fuck. No.” He angles his body so that he’s standing in front of me, blocking my view of my mother. And blocking me, I realize slowly, from the bullets in her gun. I can’t see his face but I can hear the anguish in his voice as he pleads, “Baby, please. You have to listen to me. I didn’t—”
“I don’t have to do anything.” I stumble to my feet. Stumble toward my mother. I’m still not thinking clearly, but I’m aware enough to know that I have to get her out of this room. Have to get her away from Ian.
“Veronica, stop. I don’t want you anywhere near her right now.” He grabs on to my wrist. A second later my mother’s gun goes off, the bullet slamming into the wall a few inches above Ian’s head.
“Don’t touch her!” my mother screams. “Don’t you fucking touch my daughter! She’s been used by enough men. I’m not going to let it happen again!”
He drops my arm, once again puts his hands up. “I swear I’m not going to hurt her, Melanie.”
“Yeah,” she sneers, the gun wobbling dangerously in her hands. “That’s what they all say when you’re young and beautiful. It’s when you get older that they break their promises.
“You can’t trust him, baby,” she tells me as she cocks the gun a second time. “He’ll betray you just like your father did me. Just like all men do in the end. It’s what I’ve been trying to protect you from.”
She takes aim at Ian again, this time right between his eyes.
And still he moves to get in front of me. Still he tries to put his body between me and the gun.
“I don’t understand what’s happening here.” I know the situation is urgent, know things can go from bad to devastating at any second. And still I can’t focus. My head is throbbing, my body aching. The room spinning. I reach a hand out to steady myself against the wall as I try to think through the cloudiness inside my brain. “Just put the gun down, Mom. Just put it down and we can talk.”
My words are still coming out slurred.
“There’s nothing to talk about, Veronica. He’s going to hurt you. He’s going to tell all your secrets. Tell all my secrets. And then where will we be? Who will love us then?”
“I won’t,” Ian says, even as he backs toward me a little more. “I already called my agent, told him I’m not writing the book.”
“Liar!” my mother screams. “You want to expose me. It’s why you did all this. Trying to make her think she’s crazy so she’ll tell everyone what happened. Tell everyone how my own husband locked me away in an insane asylum. Then everyone will hate me. I’ll be a joke, like Joan Crawford. A punchline to some late night comedic hack. And so will she. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m not going to let you destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for.”
Her finger tenses on the trigger and suddenly everything happens at once. Ian throws an arm out and shoves me, hard. At the same time, he ducks low and makes a dive toward my mother who jerks backward just as the gun goes off.
Terror slams through me as I hit the ground and then I’m scrambling back to my feet. Running over to Ian, to my mother, as I try to figure out if either of them have been shot. Adrenaline is racing through me now, burning off the last of the sluggishness. My head hurts like a bitch and my muscle coordination is still a little wonky, but I’m thinking more clearly than I have since I woke up. And that’s when it hits me.
“You drugged me.” The words pour from me of their own accord as my mother struggles into a sitting position. There’s blood on her hands, and smeared across her face from where she rubbed her cheek. But that’s it. No bullet wounds and no bruises from her fall, at least that I can see. A quick look at Ian tells me that he isn’t harmed, either—just shaken up as he empties the gun and then climbs to his feet.
He’s looking at me like he thinks I’m going to shatter, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. Won’t give either of them the satisfaction. “You drugged me,” I repeat again. “In the coffee you insisted I drink. And then you brought me up here.”
I look around the room at all the blood, look down at my own body that’s still covered in the stuff. “You did this to me. You did all of this to me. The bath, the belladonna, the dress you made me wear, the brooch.” Anguish wells up inside of me. “Why? Why would you do this to me? Why would you hurt me like this?”