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

I have this moment of complete disorientation. I am certain I had left the dog safely in the car, as I always do. And yet here he is. I don’t understand it. Then I move more deeply into the room and I do.

William Atwater is there. Leg irons very much like what I used on him in the RV are around my dog’s neck. The puppy appears to be unharmed, but I can see that if Atwater falls, the leg irons will snap that sweet golden neck like soft butter. The pup looks so small to me right then. He is meant to grow to be a very large dog, and he has the big feet to prove it. But just now I can hold and carry his squirming self in my arms with only the smallest amount of difficulty. I long to reach for him and do that now, but I know that would seal both of our fates. I have to deal with the business at hand.

I refocus my attention on Atwater. His upper left arm is crudely bound. A dirty scrap of cloth partly dampened with dried blood.

“Yes. You did that,” he says. He’s followed my gaze. “It’s giving me hell, but I’ll be okay. I can’t die, you know?”

I look at him flatly. “No,” I say. “That is not something I know.”

“But surely you must. Otherwise, I’d be dead already, you see?”

“How do you explain that?”

“I don’t. I am one of the immortals.”

I level the gun at his head. “We’ll see.”

He opens his arms wide, exposing, I’m imagining, his heart. “Go ahead,” he says. And the dog wheezes at the motion when the irons tighten around his throat.

“Fuck,” I say, though I’m not even sure it’s out loud. “Fuck fuck.”

Atwater smiles then. And I want to kill him as badly as I’ve wanted anything.

“You can’t, can you?” And he seems satisfied. I’ve failed some kind of test. Or I’ve passed it. I’m not really sure. “You can’t risk the dog.”

“Let him go,” I say, though I have zero expectation of compliance when I say it.

“You know what you have to do.”

“Sacrifice myself for a dog? That’s what you think I’ll do?”

“No,” he says instantly. “That would be idiotic. You’re a hardened killer. You told me so yourself. There’s no way you’d do that.”

“What’s the deal?”

“Put your gun down and I let your dog go. Then things are even between us, you see? And we’ll see how it goes from there.”

I play this out in my mind. See the flaws. So flawed.

“I can’t do that, William. You know I can’t. If I put the gun down, there’s nothing to stop you from killing the dog anyway.”

“Mexican standoff.” He smirks.

“Something like that.”

“You’d kill me in a heartbeat,” he says with confidence. “Yet right now I sense you’d do almost anything to save that dog. Interesting.”

“Not that interesting,” I say. I’m thinking fast, but I don’t see an easy answer. “Anyway, I thought you couldn’t die.”

He shrugs.

I want Atwater dead. I will kill him—and I have no doubt he will die. But the dog. Somehow, I can’t make myself risk the dog, even though I know it’s the right answer. It should be an easy trade: the dog for a serial killer. There’s nothing difficult about that. And yet. I scramble, trying to think of a different way.

“Yes, I think so. You’ve been following me a long time. So long, I was certain you’d arrive. And yet, here you have every opportunity and you’re not taking it.”

He’s taunting me in a way that makes me wonder: does he want to die? Is that what this is about? His life or the dog’s.

I raise the gun higher, as though that will make a difference. Level the gun at his head. He squeezes the leg iron noose. The dog whimpers. Gags. I close my eyes and breathe. I just don’t know what to do.

I level the gun at the dog’s head. “I could take him out,” I say. “Put him out of his misery.”

“Well, that’s the gamble I took, isn’t it? That’s the gamble I’ve known all along.” And he sounds pleased about this, too. “You can kill him and me. Then you pass the test. Or you can just kill me and I’ll kill him on the way out. Or you can put the gun down and trust I’ll keep my word and not kill him. It’s just such a super interesting dilemma, all ’round.”

I know what I have to do. It will be humane if it comes from me, I know that. It will be more humane if I just kill the dog now. But in the moment I decide this, he looks at me with his golden eyes, and there is so much love and trust in them that I just can’t. And I don’t. And Atwater sees all of this and laughs.

“I sort of love you for this, you know?”

I close my eyes.

“I love you for being predictable in this way. And for your love. Not everyone has that. But I knew you would. You are so filled with love.” He is so pleased with himself. So smug. And I try to think about a way out of this dilemma. And I can’t. And I try to deny his words. Filled with love. How can that be? Yet that resonates, too, even if it’s something I hadn’t known.

I raise the gun. Take careful aim. I know what I risk, but I also know it can’t be any other way. The trade that’s demanded of me is necessary. It’s not the answer I want, but it’s the only answer that can be. Atwater simply must die.

It’s like the killer sees the decision and knows, suddenly, that he’s lost the round. He drops the chain and lunges toward me. The shot goes off, goes wide as Atwater’s fist impacts with my jaw.

And then everything goes dark.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

WHEN I OPEN my eyes, I see nothing at all.