Endings by Linda Richards (portable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

urge to chase them with more words. Letting them flutter and sink under their own weight. Nothing happens for a while, but I coach myself to be silent. There are words in him for me. I can feel them coming. And so I wait. After a while, he starts to talk.

“She was the first one.” His voice is low. I have to strain to hear. It is not shyness. I can identify what it isn’t, but not what it is. He says the words, and then I regard him silently. Without judgment, at least not on the surface. I know he has more to say.

“She was just so very tiny. And perfect. And she looked so soft. And her hair. These beautiful gold ringlets. And that softness. I really just wanted to pet her skin.”

I feel an eruption of tears pulling together inside me. A harvest of tears. A valley of regrets. And I know I don’t want to hear more. Not of this. Though there are things I do want and need to hear. And I’m not even sure why he’s telling me. I’m certain he was not afraid of my threats, even though he knows they weren’t empty. My fear is that he has recognized, at some level, a kindred spirit. He understands I have seen some of what he has seen. I don’t want to be connected with him in that way. My heart strains against it. But I don’t want to lose the ground I’ve gained.

“Where is she, William?” My voice is ragged, though as tender as I can manage. I am the hunter now. And I need to be gentle. I know I am close to getting what I need.

He is quiet for so long; I think maybe he’s not going to answer. And then he does.

“But she’s there, don’t you see?”

“Where?” I don’t quite understand, though a part of me does in an instant. Part of me understands and backs away.

“There in my garden, by the lake.”

“Garden.” I repeat the word. Think back to the rough plot near where I found him with Ashley and my heart sinks. I’m not even sure exactly why, but it plummets down, somewhere in the region of my feet, though I struggle to keep my face expressionless. “Garden. What do you grow there?”

“Flowers.” He laughs again. A small, soft laugh, devoid of mirth.

I imagine the feeling of the Bersa in my hand. The cold heat of her. I imagine the weight of Atwater dying, right here, right now. Imagine the weight of it on my soul. It is not a troublesome thought. I know it is a weight I could bear.

“More than one,” I say. It isn’t a question. The way he said it, I know I don’t need to ask. A single perfect flower does not a garden make. I ask it anyway, though I’m fairly certain I don’t want the answer.

“Yes. They’re all there. The ones that haven’t been found. So soft. All of them. Brittle.” There is a harsh accent on the last syllable. I suppress the shudder this invites.

He meets my eyes as he says this. He knows what he is doing. It is not for nothing he has been studying human emotion this closely. He has not come all these miles without learning a thing or two. He can see, or at least guess, the effect of these particular words on me.

“Why did you tell me?”

He doesn’t answer for so long, I think he isn’t going to. And, when he does, his words take me by surprise. “You’re going to set me free.”

“I am?”

He lifts his index finger. Points at me. Indicates a shooting.

“Yes. Free.”

It would be so easy. I can imagine all of the actions. Imagine, even, the release I would feel. I haven’t really wanted anything else since I first heard of William Atwater. It is almost like lust. I haven’t wanted anything beyond a world that doesn’t include him.

I raise the Bersa. At this close range, both the noise and the mess would be terrible. I can feel it in my gut, just thinking about it. And the force of the kick of the gun. But there is a terrible hunger on me. A force unseen. It would be almost like orgasm to kill him. To watch his face disintegrate under the force. To stand by while the world is cleansed of his presence. What arrogance on my part! But I know this. I feel the arrogance. And it doesn’t slow me down.

I tilt my head. Tilt the gun. Look at him. Feel the result of the muscle memory I have for this action.

It would have been so easy. Too easy. That is the answer. Too easy. Not the right course. It takes a force of will, but I lower the gun.

“No. That’s not how it’s going to be.”

Without taking my eyes off him, I grab the leg irons from where I’d left them on the passenger seat. The same ones I’d taken from his van and secured him with in the trunk of the car. While he’d been asleep in the grass, I had taken the time to remove part of the overhead storage so that the frame rail would be exposed. Now I instruct him to attach the leg irons to this frame. I knew that, having done as I instructed, there was no way he’d be able to get out of the RV without a key or tools.

“What are you going to do with me?” Is his voice weaker? Less sure? I’m not certain, but I let myself think it is true.

“Honestly, I don’t know yet. But I’m working on something.”

It is only partly a lie.

He is still dressed in his makeshift toga, and I wait for him to settle down on the bed in the RV and for his breathing to grow regular before I feel comfortable enough that he won’t try anything. It takes a while. But until the breathing changes, there is no part