Page 91 of Montana Falls
“No.” My jaw tensed. “Love isn’t this – love isn’t whatever you’ve been doing to me since I was born.”
“But-”
“But nothing.” I cut her off. “Every time you said you cared for me; it was a lie. And as fun as it would be to listen to all the twisted reasons you did what you did, I don’t want to.” Tears still fell, stronger with each word that left my lips. “I don’t owe you anything,Cassie. I don’t have to hear you out.”
She nodded, lips pursing.
“What now then?”
“Now you get on your knees.” I ordered again, stepping closer.
“You’d kill your boyfriend’s mother?”
“Yes.” I didn’t hesitate, even if the words tasted like poison. “I’d kill the woman who ruined my life, even if it takes more people I love from me.”
Her eyes got impossibly darker. “They can’t mean that much to you if you’d lose them for me.”
“It’s not for you. It’s forme. My mama, my daddy.” My hand shook a little. “It’s for Maggie, and grandpa, and everyone else you’ve hurt. It’s for the people whose lives you’ve ruined and it’s for… it’s forMalone. For the man you vowed to love as part of your lies.”
“I did love him.” She laughed without humor as tears fell from her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. “Retta loved him. He was an accident… we didn’t even mean to meet him. We only wanted to see if he missed Maggie as much as we did and then he was just so nice and… and thenhehappened.” She waved toward Lincoln.
My finger locked on the trigger, and I lined up my sight, ignoring the murmurs behind me. Ignoring the people I loved and everything that it meant. Ignoring the worry I had about the aftermath of what would happen once I’d killed my boyfriend’s mother, right in front of their fucking faces.
Ignoring the fact that I wasn’t about to end the O’Malley line.
I was in love with two of them and I would kill anyone who hurt them, I wouldnevertry to do it myself.
For a single second I wondered if my mama and daddy would hate me for it. Dor daring to love the blood of our greatest enemies.
For a single second I heard nothing but my mama’s screams as John O’Malley’s cruelness shattered her into a million pieces she never got back.
Then I remembered her smile. Her laugh. The way she told me she loved me no matter what.
I remembered how she smiled at me as I killed her. I remembered how my daddy looked at me as he died for me. And I knew I had my answer. I knew that both my parents would not care who I loved so long as they were good – so long as they loved me the way I deserved to be loved.
And they did. They always would.
“I did love you; you know,” Retta whispered, eyes wide as she stared at her sons. “There was a reason I could never hurt you – why, even when I wasn’t in control, I couldn’t lay a hand on either of you.”
Nobody responded to her, and I didn’t have the guts to turn around and look at my boys.
“I’m sorry.” She cried. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be Retta – I was always Cassie when it came down to it and Cassie would never stop.”
She made her worst choice again as she stopped speaking to both of her boys, concentrating on the one person who meant everything to her, far more than I or Maggie ever had.
The one she would never have killed, regardless of what he did.
Retta swallowed hard as she reached out to her youngest son, pleading almost.
“You remind me of my husband; he was always kind and hated violence.” She breathed. “Misha, I really do love-”
And just like that, the choice was taken from me.
The vengeance I had suffered for was stolen away in a single gunshot and second of time.
Retta’s eyes flickered, a flash of something unnaturally soft before she dropped to the ground, blood pouring from the single hole in her chest, right over her heart. She gasped, her breath hitching, and for a moment, the world seemed to slow. Her body swayed, her face contorting in pain, and then, with a final, dramatic gasp, she fell. Backwards. Onto the center of the stage.
Onto the same spot my daddy had fallen when she’d cruelly stolen him from me for nothing more than his surname.
