Page 43 of Drowning Her

I removed my gun from the holster, cocked it, then placed it in her hands. Her palms sunk down under the weight. She didn’t move. I pushed her finger into the trigger guard, then made her point it at me.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Do it.” I moved the barrel to my heart. If this was my time to go, I wanted it to be her.

“No,” Maisie said. She pressed the gun toward me, trying to force it into my hands. “Tell me, Wilder. If you wanted, even with this gun in my hands, you could kill me, couldn’t you?”

I inhaled deeply, sucking in her fragrant scent. That intoxicating musk, even here, in this damp tunnel.

“Yes,” I said.

She pressed the gun into my palms, making me hold it. “But you choose not to kill me,” she said.

As if that defined me.

I had killed four people that evening alone.

“Do you not trust yourself with me?” she asked, her voice uncharacteristically shy, like she was afraid of the answer. Because we both knew the truth.Yes,I didn’t trust myself with her, but not in the way she thought. I could control myself; I had been taught to control my emotions at an early age. To never let anything slip through the cracks.

But Maisie unhinged me.

I wasn’t afraid of killing. I was afraid of what saving her would do to me.

She cleared her throat. “I can take it. Whatever you’ve got,” she said. She tossed hair over her shoulders, the strands faintly glimmering in the dim light. “Trust me. I’ve seen it all. A little water torture isn’t going to scare me.”

I almost laughed. Obviously, water torture hadn’t scared her away. A sane person would have run screaming, but Maisie wasn’t normal. Neither was I.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said.

She was so damn persistent.

“I don’t,” I said. I knew she was safe. But if I got attached to her inanyway, others could use her against me. And I couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t risk it.

“Bullshit,” she said. She lifted her chin in the air. “If you didn’t worry about me, I would be dead. We both know it.” The shadows danced across her face. “You’ve had ample opportunities to kill me. Hell, you could kill meright now.” Laughter trickled into her voice. “And no one would find my body for days.”

“Run,” I said again. Because that was what was best for her.

And yet I kept following her.

“I didn’t run away from Green.” My muscles twitched at his name. That bastard. “I’m not going to run. Not from you, Wilder.”

I stared at her dark shape, trying to reason with her, to give her this last chance to get away as far as she could.

But Maisie stayed.

And I didn’t move either.

The ground rumbled slightly at first, then a light beamed into the darkness. We both pushed ourselves against the wall. The horn bellowed, vibrating through our bodies. The air suctioned around us, creating a vacuum, the carts swooping by. Each flash of light that went past us illuminated Maisie in bursts: her red and black hair, her hazy brown eyes, that cherry lipstick. The bite mark healing on her neck. My mark. But I wanted more. And no matter what I did, I would always want more. She moved forward as if to touch the train with her fingers, to make sure it was real. I wanted to touch her, to make sure she was real too.

Because Maisie was right. I could kill her. I could push her forward, hurtle her onto the railing. Let her die like her sister. Give her the peace she wanted.

Maisie shouted at me, her words catching in my chest: “Life isn’t always about trying to do the right thing. It’s more than that.”

I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t find my words.

“Sometimes, we’re just trying to survive,” she shouted. “To find whatever power we can. It’s not always about the right choice.”

The right choice.

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