Elizabeth was all but gone when gunshots blew the dark world into bright, shiny bits. She heard screams and followed them up, eyes blinking as the big man rolled to his feet, shouting something she later understood to be his brother’s name.
No answer came beyond the screams, which were agonized and terrible and afraid. They rose from the room next door, ricocheted off concrete walls, and Elizabeth—even now—had no idea how Channing got her hands on the gun. She was simply there, pale in the door, and naked, the gun impossibly large in her tiny hand. Elizabeth saw it slow and clear, but like the dream of a dream; as if it had happened to some person she may have known once upon a distant time.
*
The first shot blew his knee to mist. He was still falling when the second knee disappeared, too. He jerked right and left, then dropped where he’d stood, the ruined bones slapping concrete with a heavy, wet sound she would never forget. His screams joined his brother’s before turning into a tortured version of barely recognizable words.
“Bitch!”
He writhed.
“Fucking … Ahh! Fuck!”
Channing shuffled across the floor, a broken mask on her face, too. The eyes looked dark and swollen, the mouth open and soundless. The gun pulled her arm down, so she staggered once, then stopped above the screaming man.
“Channing…”
The name fell from Elizabeth’s mouth, but Channing raised the gun, her face utterly still as the screams ramped louder, and tears tracked through the grime beneath her eyes. She was in shock and filthy, blood running from her wrists to drip off her fingers.
“Channing…”
Elizabeth stopped struggling. The girl stared at the wailing man.
“Channing…”
*
It took forever to use all eighteen bullets: seconds that stretched to minutes, minutes that felt like hours. In reality, it could have been no time at all. Elizabeth was not the one to say. She kept her eyes on Channing when she could; saw the wounded blankness of all who are ruined young. In the end, it was a simple thing. The gun spoke. Men screamed. When they were dead, Channing stood for a long time before Elizabeth’s words made any kind of impression.
The shots will have been heard.
Police will come.
Smoke still hung in the air, and already the world was torn wide open. Even as sirens rose in the distance, and wire bit more deeply into her wrists, Elizabeth understood that the police were now on one side of the rift, while she and Channing stood, forever, on the other.
That’s how fast she made her decision.
How fast her old life ended.
*
Elizabeth wanted to be done, but images spun out of the dark: Channing’s fingers, shaking red as they stripped off wire, and sirens drew close. The gathering of clothes and the wiping of the gun, the story repeated as Elizabeth held the child and forced her to say the words.
Channing was on the mattress.
Elizabeth shot them in the dark.
*
“Say it again, Channing.”
“I was on the mattress. You shot them in the dark.”
*
At two o’clock, Elizabeth finally climbed into bed. She barely slept, and when she did, she woke soaked in sweat. The third time it happened, she followed an unfamiliar noise and found Channing curled on the bathroom floor. The only light was a flicker from the girl’s room, but it was enough to see the bruises and the bite marks, the bandages on her wrists.
“I thought I was going to be sick. I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“Here.” Elizabeth ran cold water on a washcloth and handed it to Channing. “Let me help you.” She helped the girl up. They stood at the counter and in the mirror looked very different, Elizabeth narrow and lithe, the girl shorter, more gently curved. The girl was crying, but seemed unable to move. “Let me.” Elizabeth took the washcloth and pressed it against the girl’s skin. She wiped away tears and smoothed hair from the pale, cool forehead. “There.” She turned Channing to face the mirror. “Better?”
The girl stared at her own face, then at Elizabeth’s. “We have the same eyes.”
Elizabeth lowered her face until it was even with the girl’s, their cheeks almost touching. “So we do.”
“It’s my fault,” Channing said. “What happened in the basement, what happened to you.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“What if it were, though? Would you still be my friend?”
“Of course.”
The girl nodded, but seemed unconvinced. “Do you believe in hell?”
“Not for you, I don’t.” Elizabeth squeezed Channing’s shoulders, her voice fierce. “Not for this.”
The girl looked down, and the bright eyes closed. “I shot the little one the most because he liked to hurt me the most. That’s what the dream was about: his fingers and teeth, that whisper he had, the way he’d hold my eyes open as he hurt me, that deep-down, forever stare.”
“He got what he deserved.”
“But, I made the choice,” Channing said. “The smaller brother was the worst so I shot him the most. Eleven bullets. That was me. My choice. How can you say there’s no hell?”
“You can’t look at it like that.”