Page 43 of Atonement

“Now,” he gasped. “Let’s go.”

I don’t know where he found the strength to grab my arm and drag me through the house. Every ten steps or so, which took awhile because of how weak he was, he’d stop and zap me again. Every time I tried to scream my pain and frustration, but nothing in my body cooperated. I should have been strong enough to beat an old man who had been stabbed in the chest multiple times. But no matter what I did, no matter how far ahead I tried to plan, even when I managed to catch him by surprise, he still got the upper hand.

“Here,” he gasped, finally letting me lie for good. He tried to Tase me again, but couldn’t bend over properly. I heard him shuffle away, then the beep of his cell phone as he dialed a number and began speaking softly. How long before I could move my limbs again? My brain was already struggling to remember exactly what had just happened over the past couple of minutes. Bodies weren’t made to withstand this much electricity. The ceiling above me shifted in and out of focus, but Conrad’s face was clear as he bent over me.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” he said again. “We had a deal.”

I struggled to speak, but no sound moved past my lips. He smirked.

“But I don’t care. Because I’m going to have so much fun with the three of you. Letting you be together just long enough to give you hope, then tearing you apart. Hurting you in front of each other. Did you know that was my favorite thing to do to Eva, even more than raping her?” His breath stank in my face, hot copper mixed with alcohol and sweat. “I loved to see her face when I slapped or kicked your little body across the floor because she didn’t heed my instructions. It was always the key to her obedience.”

My foot twitched, but Conrad didn’t notice. I worked on moving the other one.

“I was so angry I didn’t get to sample the younger one. But now I’ll have her for the rest of my life. Sometimes in front of you, just to see you cry.” He pushed once hand over my face, smearing his blood across my cheeks. “You think you’re broken now, Meyer?” His face was too close to mine, spittle flying with every word he spoke. “I will tear you apart. Brick. By. Brick.”

I breathed as deeply as I could, coiling every ounce of strength I had gathered into my next movements. “I’m not broken.” With all the force I could muster, I drove my knee upward and hit Conrad right in the space between his legs. His face contorted and turned red even before he began to scream, but he didn’t fall. Standing up straight, he reached for his Taser once more. I rolled and scrambled, but most of my muscles were still mud, and I couldn’t get any distance from him. At the sound of the Taser clicking, I looked over my shoulder at his furious face…

And then he flew sideways, the side of his skull caving in like a broken eggshell, and he fell to the ground with a wet slap. In his place, with the baseball bat he’d used to break my arm over her shoulder and panting as if she’d just run a marathon, was Madeline.

Maddie

For a few seconds we were frozen, simply staring at each other and at Conrad’s twitching form on the ground. There was a large dent on one side of his face, where his temple used to be, brains and blood leaking through the split skull.

All Meyer could say was, “What the fuck?”

I dropped the bat to the floor. Nothing felt quite real. “I played softball in high school.”

“How could I fucking forget?”

He started to sit up and I snapped out of my reverie, rushing forward to help him with my arms around his chest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He winced as his biceps flexed, and lifted one hand to the burn marks on his chest. I grasped him harder and pulled him the rest of the way.

“I called a taxi.”

“I left you tied to a fucking bed, Maddie. How did you pay for it?”

“There was a giant wad of cash in that bag.” Both of us started at the sound of Joshua’s voice. Meyer shifted to push me behind him as Joshua strode into the room, gun at the ready. “You were meant to keep going, Meyer.”

“I fucking know that,” he growled. “What’s done is done. I’ll take the girls and go.” Despite his obvious weakness, he fought me as we both tried to put ourselves between Joshua and the other. I didn’t think Joshua would shoot me if it really came to that. Meyer, I wasn’t so sure.

“It’s not that easy now.” He stopped a few feet from us, the point of a triangle between Conrad’s body and us.

“Make the right fucking choice for once, Joshua.” They both started at the venom in my voice. “You’ve had so many options to make a difference, and each time you fucked it up worse than before. You stood outside that door while he raped my mother. While he tried to rape me. He’s done now. There’s no devil left to serve.”

His face was implacable. “I have my orders.”

“FUCK your orders!” He winced. “This isn’t a game, Joshua! Lives are at stake here!”

“Give it to me, Joshua.”

All three of us turned to see my mother in the doorway, wet hair hanging around her face, dressed in what I could only suppose were Meyer’s old clothes—a baseball tee and baggy sweat pants that seemed to swallow her whole. She held out one hand, steady, resolute. And to the surprise of every person in the room, he handed her the gun.

Mom didn’t hesitate. She crossed the few steps between where she stood to Conrad’s body, aimed the gun, and put one bullet into the dent I’d left in the side of his head.

The smell of gunpowder permeated the air as all of us held our breath. And then, as one, we exhaled.

Mom dropped the gun and turned to Meyer and me. She flashed me a smile, just for a second, before looking at Meyer.

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