My father didn’t look back at him. His fingers pressed into my throat. My fingers clawed over his arms, seeking a crack, a lever, a switch to turn off the crushing mechanism of his grip.
“Oh my God, stop. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Michael said, and then laughed. He screwed a silencer on the gun barrel.
My father and the man with the tattooed hand laughed with him.
I blinked tears from my eyes, felt like my lungs were struggling to connect to the air through my skin, through my fingertips, through my tear ducts.
My clawed hands slid on my father’s arms. A surge of adrenaline arced over my veins. My body bucked, struggling to dislodge him, bringing my hands that much closer to his eyes, fighting for the final breath.
The constricted muscles of my neck flexed against the granite of my father’s grip.
Vision blurring, I saw Michael step slightly back. “Oh my God, somebody do something. Stop or I’ll shoot.”
My father kept smiling until he heard the click of the hammer being pulled back. He turned.
The gun was so close you could barely see the suppressed muzzle flash. The bullet tore through my father’s head and plummeted out, taking blood, brain, and skull with it.
He fell to the side, following the trajectory of his mutilated brain and the bullet, collapsing on the floor next to me.
His hands fell off my neck. I sucked in air, couldn’t breathe for coughing.
“Holy—” the man with the tattooed hand screamed, clutching at Janie.
She kicked away from him, slithering onto the floor.
Michael whirled and pointed the gun at the tattooed man.
“Wait! I could—” The bullet drove his body against the wall. He slid down, leaving a bloody smear.
I fought to a sitting position, gasping. Struggling to send oxygen everywhere that needed it at once: heart, lungs, brain, arms, legs.
Cool air rushed in, flowed into me like energy, but not enough.
“Janie.” My voice was a grating whisper. She crawled to me.
“He was going to kill you.” Janie’s voice was tiny, like it was hiding under a table.
My hand bumped her arm.
“And . . .” Michael drew a hand down over his face. “Scene.” He pulled his cell phone out and dialed 911.
My lungs heaved.
“We need help! People are dead, shot, my girlfriend has been shot, and my friend can’t breathe. We need an ambulance!” Michael’s high-pitched voice cracked. “Yes. We’re at 233B, Lincoln Green. Please hurry. My girlfriend . . . the blood—” He hung up. Threw the phone down.
My air wasn’t coming right. I swayed as I sat, struggling to find the oxygen, still feeling fingers around my neck, still feeling the constriction of my esophagus.
“Most satisfying.” Michael scratched his head like a sleeper awakening. “You, sir, were excellent,” he said to me. “Going back for Beast. Just like I knew you would. You’re a predictable performer, and we love you for it.” He leaned over Janie.
Janie shivered, shrank into herself.
“You’ve got the scene straight, Janie? I saved your brother. That’s what happened here. I can keep all of us out of jail, even Jason, but you’ve got to back me up. I mean, no love lost, right? And I did save him. I’m the hero now.”
Janie didn’t move, didn’t agree. Did nothing.
Cyndra watched me try to breathe, not moving from where she was nailed to the couch. Like Michael would kill her next.
“You, too, Cyndra,” he said. “Stick to the script.”
Cyndra nodded, a battlefield surrender. Her horror-wide eyes showing that now she saw him. Truly saw him.
“Hmmm.” Michael frowned at her as he stood, stretched. Cocked his head, listening for sirens. “Won’t be long, now. Do I trust you all? To sell the story?” He held up the gun, aimed it at Cyndra for a moment, then Janie.
I blinked black spots out of my eyes.
Michael crouched in front of me.
“Jason. You thought I was going to let him kill you.” His smile was clean. Real. Like there was a chance I’d believe him now.
As if he wasn’t going to kill us all before the cops came. He’d say it had been my father or the tattooed man. He’d take the gun from my father’s waistband, shoot us, then put it back in my father’s hand. Or near it.
Rage gathered behind the lodged screams in my throat. My eyes burned, though no tears came.
My eyes found the gun in Michael’s hand. Gauged the distance of the reach.
He tracked my glance. The perfect smile returned. “You gonna go for it? Do it, Ice. You’ll never get there in time.”
My shoulders and head shuddered with each crushed breath.
Michael held the gun out, sighted down the barrel at me. “God, what a rush.” He whipped the gun to the side and mimed taking the shot. “It’s official. Nothing compares.”
“You won. It’s over.” My voice was a wisp. I slumped against the wall. My eyes fluttered, gauged his grip on the gun.
I sat, fish-gasping. Let my arms fall to the floor on either side of me like they were dead weights.
Michael watched me struggle for air as sirens gathered in the distance.
“Not quite yet. Soon, though.” He rolled his head and shoulders, like a fighter warming up. “Like I said. There are users and the used. You can’t transcend, only accept.”
The gun floated between me and Janie.
He was going to kill us. The knowledge was inevitable poison burning under my skin, working its way to the surface. Blood-sweat pinpricking each pore.
Michael turned slightly away from where I slumped. The sirens grew louder.
I lunged for the gun in his hand. My arm pushed toward it through tar-thick air. I fell against Janie’s side as my numb hand knocked against the metal, sending it clattering onto the floor.
Maybe he was right and it was too late, after all.
Michael spun back to me as I fell across Janie’s knees, pathetically intent on the gun. A sleepwalker trying to thread a needle.
One move and he’d get to it before me.
I reached, knowing I was dead. Hating the defeat in my mouth. I reached, waiting for him to get it before me. Waiting for the silencer-muffled puncture of the final shot.
Behind us, Cyndra shrieked.