Page 92 of Vengeful Rotten Casualties

My hand starts to tremble.

“Micki, baby,” Luc calls. “Micki, look at me.” I can’t. I can’t look at him and know I’m about to do it. I’m about to pull the trigger and something could go wrong. Thomas could pull him too close. I could fuck it all up.

“Breathe, baby,” Luc says. His voice is all I hear.

Not the wind. Not the rain. Not even the rapid beat of my own heart pulsating in my ears. I hear nothing but him. The low, baritone of his soft voice. It calms me. It drives all of the overwhelming fear back. I exhale, long and slow, lifting the gun slightly higher.

I take aim, and I pull the trigger.

38

MICKI

For a beat,I think my hearing hasn’t returned. The gun must have gone off, but I don’t hear it. Thomas doesn’t move. He doesn’t jerk. He doesn’t act like he’s been shot. Does that mean…? I look at Luc, but he hasn’t moved either. His brow puckers first in confusion, and then panic. Did I … not do it?

My eyes turn down to the gun in my hand and I pull the trigger again. It clicks, but doesn’t release. No. No, it can’t—I click the trigger over and over and still nothing happens.

Thomas starts to laugh. Slow and quiet at first and then harder, louder. His laugh overtakes him enough that Luc manages to rip himself away. Thomas doesn’t even seem to care as he stumbles back, right on the edge—rain slapping into his back and making his hair stick to the side of his face. Luc gets back to his feet and finally manages to withdraw his own gun. I dive for him.

“Give it to me!” I yell.

But it’s too late. Thomas widens his arms, his eyes wild as his expression goes slack. He looks like I feel—unhinged. Destroyed. “Too bad, Mikayla,” he continues to laugh. “Too fucking bad. If I’m going to die here, guess you can’t be the one to do it.”

A scream lodges in my throat as, with just that last statement as a warning, he takes a step back and disappears off the edge of the floor, out the window and into the dark, roaring night air. Seconds pass and then, the telltale sound of a thump hits my ears above all else.

No.

Luc lowers his gun.

Shock echoes around the room followed by the wind and the fluttering of papers as they slide off of the desk and onto the floor. In all of my plans, in all of my predictions, this wasn’t … this hadn’t occurred to me. I didn’t think … Thomas Kincaid is far too prideful to kill himself. He thinks he’s the smartest man in the room. Hethoughthe was.

“No…” The word sticks to the roof of my mouth. “No.” I run towards the window and Luc turns just as I pass him, snatching me before I get too close. He rips my legs out from underneath me even as his gun clatters to the ground. I scream as we both go down hard right next to the open window. My knees slam into the remains of the glass, cutting through my clothes and into my flesh. I don’t feel it. “No!”

“Micki. He’s gone,” Luc says as I convulse against his chest, struggling against his grip.

“I had him…” Hollow is the space inside my chest. My breath comes faster and faster, scratching my throat raw with each inhale and exhale.

Luc clutches onto me, holding fast and tight. Something wet touches my side. “I’m sorry, Micki. I’m—”

This can’t be real. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

“No.” I shake my head in denial. “Nononononono.No!” The scream bursts out of me. He can’t be gone. He can’t be. I … I had it all planned out. It was perfect. It was the best vengeance. There was no better way to make him pay. For everything. For my mom. For me. Yes, I fucked it up in the end. I thought letting him live in the wreckage of his sins was a worse fate, but looking into his face had changed things. Seeing him again after all these years made me realize that I couldn’t let him get away without killing him, myself. This, though … this isn’t revenge. He stole it from me. Just like he stole everything else. “Ifuckinghad him!”

Luc’s arms close around me from behind. “I’m sorry.” That’s all he can seem to say. He’s sorry. Distantly, I know I should tell him it’s not his fault. That this is on me. This was something I should’ve predicted. Something I should’ve foreseen but didn’t. Why? Because I was too arrogant. So convinced of my own planning that I never saw a different outcome.

Thomas Kincaid is dead. His body crumpled at the bottom of a long fall, across the hard pavement below.

I wonder if his blood runs red or black? A man like him—with a cold dead thing for a heart—I bet it’s black. I could look. I could find out for sure, but I’m in too much shock. Too much denial.

It was right there. My victory in my grasp and now … it’s gone. Forever.

Fucking Thomas Kincaid took the only thing that could have ever given me closure. “You bastard!” I scream after him.

The tears I’ve kept buried deep, the pain that’s festered inside of me for so long—it all comes rising up. Streaming down my face as I sob against Luc’s chest. It’s not fucking fair. All of my planning. Everything I gave up. It’s pointless now.

My hands slap the floor, the glass shards—the pieces that didn’t fly out into the dark night—dig into my palm. The agony lights me up. Tears run in rivulets down my cheeks, over my chin, dripping onto my arms as I bow over my hands. I lift them and stare down at the red against my palms. Blood pours from the open wounds.

I thought I hit rock bottom years ago … turns out, there’s always a deeper pit waiting for me in the end. Always darker. Deeper.Worse.

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