Page 108 of Between Now and Always

The gun’s loud report pulls a scream from my lungs, but I don’t stop until blinding sears my leg and I fall, unable to support my own weight any longer. I fall onto my stomach, landing on my elbows and a terrible pain rips through my arm. My head swims, but I force myself to move and manage to run over. I look down at my leg, and whimper at the sight of a small hole in my calf, where blood pours out.

Pours, not gushes. If I can get out of here, I might be okay.

“Oh, Beth. I’m sorry, you can’t leave,” Fiona’s sinister sing song voice draws my eye over to her.

She standing next to Dina, pressing the gun into her hand and curling her fingers around it. She stands, her expression full of smug victory.

“You will not get away with this.” I promise

She chuckles. “When they find you, they’ll think you came here to get revenge on your friend for stealing your man. And that she, in a fit of greed and rage, shot your father and your grandmother, and then you before she set fire to the house.”

“Of course, she wasn’t able to get out before it burned down around her.”

“Fiona, come on, let’s just get her to sign and get out of here. They’ll think she did it.” Duke cajoles.

“Duke, shut up. We can’t let her leave here.”

“Fiona we didn’t talk about killing anyone.”

She turns to him, strokes his face soothingly “Shhh. Calm down. Remember, we’ve been planning this for a long time. We are so close to having everything we want. And if you decide you don’t want to do your part, well, just look at Drew over there and imagine that as your future.”

He pales and draws back from her. But he nods, “Fine. Let’s just get out of here.”

“As you set that fire,” she says and shoves him out of the door.

She walks over and stands over me.

“I wish I could say it was nice knowing you, but it would be wrong for the last words you hear to be a lie.” She smiles unpleasantly.

God, I hate her I want to tell her to eat shit and die, but Cameron is upstairs and if seeing me crawl, will make her do the right thing, I’ll do it.

“At least take Cameron. She won’t know anything that happened here. She’s your daughter.” I plead in a scream when her face remains unchanged.

“I’ll weep for her when they come to tell me the news of how she was caught in the fire set by this diabolical woman who everyone saw steal her best friend’s man,” she informs me.

“Please don’t do this. Phil will take care of Cameron if you don’t want her.” I scream again when Fiona just looks dispassionately me.

“I have goals, Liz. You wouldn’t understand that. Your sentimentality is a weakness. Too bad you livedjust long enough to learn that.”

“I’ll kill you. I will. You will not ever breathe free air again after today, Fiona. I swear to God.” I rage.

She laughs.

My heart, which has broken more times than I can count in my life, breaks now for my sister and my brother and for Carter who’s going to get here too late and find me. I can’t finish the thought. It’s too painful.

“Here, watch this, it will make you feel comfort to know she slept through it.” Fiona places the baby monitor on the floor beside me walks out.

I pick it up and stroke the screen, wishing I could be with her.

“It’s okay, baby. I will not let you die in here,” I promise her. Even as I know it’s futile.

I glance at Dina, who’s still unconscious. I wonder, again, if she’s already dead.

I drag myself, ignoring the pain in my leg, half away across the room to her. Maybe it’s the blood loss and the pain, but when I try to move again, I can’t.

And then, I smell the smoke and I know it’s too late. I visualize the curling, grey and white tendrils, and in them, I see all of my dreams, all of my hope, and everything I love.

I’m going to die.

---