And then it happened. Shannon cried. They were silent stealth tears creeping down his cheeks, but I knew he felt them drip down and fall off his face.
“I can’t lose you, Elodie. You’re the only thing human I have to hold onto. If I don’t have you, then I don’t know what anything feels like. I need you with me. I need you to translate all the things I can’t feel.”
“What good could that possibly do? You couldn’t even process my guilt over killing an innocent person.”
“I’m not stupid, goddammit! I know how you felt. I just can’t feel the same thing directly.”
An unjust mercy. I should be the one who could happily skip along without a ripple.
“Maybe you will if I pull the trigger. Maybe this is the final lesson in how to be a real person. How to feel actual pain and empathy.”
The expression on his face was like a wounded animal, looking at his attacker in disbelief. “You knew what I was. I never lied or pretended with you. I let you see it all.”
And then, against all I thought I was capable of, I pulled the trigger. Instinctively I flinched, but nothing happened. The chamber had been empty. Shannon lunged for me, and the gun slipped out of my hands as his full weight settled on top of me on the bed.
“Is this how it’s going to be now? Am I going to have to keep you on suicide watch?” he asked, his breathing coming out wild and heavy.
“I can’t live with what I’ve done. I can’t stop seeing the things you’ve done.”
“I won’t involve you ever again. I shouldn’t have brought you along this time. I thought I was doing something good for you so you could get your revenge.”
In fairness to him, I’d thought it was something good for me, too. I’d thought I needed to not just be told or hear that Stevens was gone, but to see it happen with my own eyes, to watch him struggle, to absorb his fear out of the air as if it might energize and sustain me. To watch the light go out of his eyes and see for myself that he couldn’t hurt anybody else again and that he’d gotten what he deserved. But the actual cold reality of death and murder wasn’t the glamourized fantasy of the movies with no emotional consequences. It was harsh, brutal, awkwardly violent, and poisonous to all who participated.
Except that Shannon didn’t seem affected. How could he be? I was sure he didn’t have a soul to damage. He was impervious to all this inconvenient humanity.
“But you’re not going to stop doing it,” I said.
“Of course not. I told you... everybody I kill deserves to die.”
“But not that woman,” I said.
“I didn’t kill her.”
“But you would have. She would have been collateral damage.”
“I was too focused on the results and not focused enough on the planning. It was because I cared more this time. But yes, I would have done what was necessary. Whatever you believe, I’m sorry you had to make that choice tonight. But I’m glad you made it. Aren’t you glad you made it? Would you rather I go to prison?”
“I don’t know anymore. I don’t think I can live with who you are. Or with who I am now.”
“You’re the same. One moment doesn’t change that.”
“It changes everything.”
Shannon eased off me, and pulled me into his arms. I thought at first he might squeeze me to death, he was holding me so tight.
“I wish I could take this for you,” he said, quietly. “I could handle it. I would take the guilt and pain so you wouldn’t have to feel it.”
“I wouldn’t have to feel anything if you’d let me...”
“No. We’ll go to Paris. Everything will be better there. You’ll see. A trip is what you need. You can see your friends. You can show me the sights.”
“You’ve never been to Paris?” I asked.
Shannon shook his head.
“But you speak fluent French.”
“No. I’ve been learning it ever since I found out you spoke it. I have CD’s in the car. I know just enough to get by.”
His mouth found mine, and despite what I wanted to be true, I still wanted him. Sex with Shannon that night wasn’t the victory fuck after a fresh kill that I’d feared it would be. And it wasn’t ropes and whips and power games. It felt like making love. And I wanted to believe it, that this was real, that it was something he was capable of feeling with me. Even seeing him cry wasn’t enough to fully convince me that I was some magical exception to the cold deadness inside him.
Afterward, he held me for a long time until I had almost drifted off, surrendering to dreams to make me forget for just a little while how badly everything had gotten fucked up.
But then, moments before I reached that happy release, he got up, unzipped a bag, and pulled out a coil of rope and tied me to the bed. My heart rate picked up. “Shannon?”
His answering expression was grim. “I don’t trust you with loaded guns lying around. This is for your own safety.”
When he’d secured me, he got back into bed beside me and pulled the covers over us. “Go to sleep. Things won’t seem so bad in the morning.”
Whoever had first coined that phrase was an idiot.
***