Page 91 of Double Bucked

“Claire?” I say after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“We were so close to finally fucking in a bed.”

She laughs, a small sound.

I tilt her chin toward mine. Her lips are soft now, delicate as glass when I kiss them. I kiss her mouth and each of her eyes, tasting the salt of her tears.

“Don’t pull out,” she says. “Not yet.”

“Okay,” I say, thinking, I’d stay here forever if she just asked.

30

EVERETT

Ican hear them.

Clawing. Thumping.

Like animals in the walls.

I watch the fire roar, and I imagine what it would be like to be inside of it. Flesh and muscle melting away from bone. Stripped clean of all our mortal follies: love, lust.

Hate.

Not for Claire. I could never hold hate for Claire. After all, this is on me.

I couldn’t have shepherded her better into his arms than if I were a dutiful collie and she a wayward sheep.

After all my lies and the deceit…how can I blame her for craving familiar comforts?

How can I fault her for clinging to her former flame, with his calloused hands and his messy hair and his stupid, charming, lopsided smile?

I hold the gun I took from the cornfield earlier. I can visualize the bullet inside of it, sleeping soundly in its chamber. I lift the gun and point it to the ceiling, directing it at the sounds. It clicks when I pull back the safety.

“Boom,” I hear myself say.

Then I tuck it underneath my chin. I point it at the noise in my brain. I close my eyes.

“Boom,” I repeat.

I press my thumb into the nodule and hear the safety click back on again. Only then do I lower it back to my side.

This is what she wants. To punish me.

My Claire would have made a great swordsman. She knows where to hit where it hurts.

And I don’t even have my headphones.

The fire pops. Claire moans. Ransom groans. My molars hurt. Like biting directly into the heart of an ice cube.

I begin to hum. Something. Anything. A song from my youth, maybe. I can’t quite place it. But the vibrations in my throat and in my ears soothe me.

The pain lessens. I grip my gun.

I dream about all the ways I’m going to end Riley Ransom’s life.

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