Page 72 of God of War

Reaper cocks his head. “What do you mean?”

The words crawl up my throat, the knowledge that’s been cutting me up from the inside. Finding the chair, I sink down.

“I didn’t put it together until all this shit happened, but when Delaney came to my house that night, when she was a kid, she asked me to do something.”

“Do what?”

“She wanted me to kill someone.”

Reaper doesn’t react. I can see him trying to piece it together, but he’s not there yet.

“She never said who,” I continue. “Never got the chance. Jackson showed up a second later and then, well, it’s not like I could exactly knock on her door and ask her about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this?”

I bark a bitter laugh. “And say what? The Sheriff’s daughter knows just a little too much about the Wastelander M.O.? You wanted me to put a target on her back?” I shake my head. “Besides, I didn’t think much of it after… after all the shit that followed. I was kind of busy trying to keep my head down and not end up on some fucking registry.”

“We know you didn’t do anything to that kid.”

“I know! Fuck!”

My breaths come out ragged. Painful. I close my eyes. Swallow hard.

“But I know who did. It’s who she wanted me to kill. And if I’d just listened, if I’d figured it out sooner, I could have fixed it. She would have been safe — from him, from Flores, from all of this shit.”

When I open my eyes, I meet Reaper’s.

“It’s time to make it right. And I need your help.”

27

Delaney

The house is dark and quiet. Dad’s car isn’t parked out front, so he’s probably still at the station. I picture him pacing, frantic that he hasn’t heard from Aaron.

Good, I think as I wrench open my bedroom window and hoist myself inside. He doesn’t deserve a moment of peace.

My room is still trashed. I look around at the darkened shape of the clutter, the broken pieces of my small, tired life. That’s exactly how I feel. Tired. Exhausted. It’s the kind of tired that’s beyond sleep, beyond rest. It’s bone deep and will only end with one thing: death.

I pick up a shattered photo frame and Mama’s smiling face stares up at me through the cracked glass.

“It’s okay, Mama. It will all be over soon.”

I place the frame carefully down beside my bed and then zero in on the open doorway with hardened resolve. I slip down the hall and into Dad’s room. Everything is neat and orderly, not a single thing out of place, but I don’t need to search for what I need.

The closet smells like him and it makes my stomach twist, the sharp taste of bile rising in the back of my throat. I push aside his row of neatly pressed clothes and find the gun safe.

He’s shown it to me before, many times. Whenever he felt like he was losing control of me, or I needed a reminder, he would make sure I could see as he oh-so-casually wrenched it open and placed his firearm inside. It was like he was saying, ‘I have a gun, little girl. If you think you can fight back, think again.’

But while Dad was paying attention to the message behind showing me the safe, I was paying attention to his 4-digit lock code. I was also paying attention to his back-up piece, the one underneath our passports and boxes of spare ammo. I punch in the code and the safe gives a satisfying whir-thunk as it unlocks. In the next breath, the gun is in my palm, heavy and cold. It’s a six-shooter revolver and in his infinite wisdom, my clever, calculating, charming father keeps it loaded.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I whisper with a smile.

Headlights sweep across the room as a car growls into the drive. My heart leaps into my throat and I scramble for the hallway in a ducked run.

In the living room, I find a spot with a clear line of sight to the front door and flatten myself against the wall. I’ll wait until just after he’s stepped inside, then I’ll shoot. One bullet might not be enough to kill him, but at least he’ll go down and then I can finish him off.

The engine dies and the night goes quiet again. Is that a car door? Footsteps? The noise is hard to make out over the pounding of my heart. My hand flexes around the gun and I pull back the hammer with my thumb. My finger slides onto the trigger and, as it does, a little thrill shivers down my spine. Is this what Ares feels before he kills someone? The anticipation buzzes across my skin like water dancers on the surface of the lake. Something ripples under the surface — the hunger for violence.

---