“Fuck you, O’Connell,” Frank spat at me. “You’re supposed to be on a plane right now. Everything is fucked! But I’m not going without Emily. I’ve had enough of waiting. This ends tonight.”
This wasn’t the calm, slick arsehole we’d seen in court. It was like he was losing his grip. Something had pushed him over edge, maybe even me.
“You can’t take her,” I told him calmly. “It’s too late now, the police are nearly here. Let her go before it’s too late.”
“Why couldn’t you just let her go? Why the fuck did you have to come back?” he screamed.
“Because she’s mine. She’s always been mine, and I will love her till the day I die. There is no one else for me, and there never will be.” I wasn’t telling that to Frank; I was telling it to Em. I was so proud of my girl. She was absolutely petrified, anyone could see that, but the fear was secondary to her hatred for the animal at her throat. I didn’t want to anger Frank any more, but there was no way I was letting him leave with Em.
“She was never fucking yours!” he screamed. “We were meant to be together, and if it wasn’t for the rest of you, she’d have been with me this whole time.”
I heard a slight shuffling noise and the obvious click of a loaded gun. Looking around, I could see the police surround us, even looking down from the window I’d been standing in a few minutes ago.
“Armed police!” They called out. “Stay where you are and slowly raise your hands.” This was not fucking good. Finally there were police witnesses to Frank’s psycho behavior but, by the way his eyes panned across the parking lot, I could practically see his mind working. He wasn’t getting away with it this time. When it was just me, I might have let him go to keep Em alive, but he knew the police wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t shoot Frank unless he went through with it and killed Em. But there was no way they’d let him walk away either.
“If I’m going down, she’s coming with me. None of you will ever know how much I love her. She doesn’t even know because you all keep getting in the way. You won’t let me show her—”
He never got to finish his sentence before he screamed out and his face contorted with pain. He let go of the knife, and Em dropped to her knees coughing. She scrambled through the shallow snow to get as far away from him as possible, and I raced toward her the minute she hit the ground. Lifting her up as soon as I reached her, I carried her to safety. There was a very thin red line around her neck where Frank had nicked her slightly, but other than that, she was safe in my arms.
“What the fuck did you do?” Frank screamed out. I turned to see him with his hands raised. Em’s mum stood behind with a bloody knife in her hand.
“It was all lies, wasn’t it? You told me you loved me. Time and time again you said it was all for me. For us,” Sylvia said, in a tone that was eerily calm.
“What are you talking about, you stupid delusional bitch?” Frank said. He held his hands in the air, as Em’s mum walked around to stand in front of him.
“You swore to me the time you had sex with her was a mistake. You said that she’d been flirting with you and you gave in to temptation, and I believed you! I’m not stupid. I could see how young and beautiful she was and how you looked at her but that was just temptation. It was just sex. It was me you were in love with. Me and you forever, that’s what you told me. Everything I ever did, I did for you.”
“I do love you,” he reassured her, like you would a child. “I’ve always loved you.”
“Shut up,” she screamed, waving the knife wildly. The police hovered expectantly but seemed less inclined to engage now that Em was safe. Her mum was unhinged, and they were obviously nervous about intervening until she’d said her piece.
“It’s lies all of it. I heard you when O’Connell came over. But I thought you wouldn’t have stayed after Emily left if you didn’t love me. So I drove you here because you said we were saying good-bye. Going somewhere to start a new life. I waited in the car like you told me to. I’ve always done everything you’ve ever told me to. But you brought her with you. It wasn’t me you wanted to start a new life with, it was her.”
She was as fucked-up and obsessive about Frank as he was about Em. The pair of them fucking deserved each other.
“Did you ever love me, Mum?” Emily asked. Her mum turned with a jolt to face her, and it was almost like she’d forgotten Em was there.