Page 80 of Glitter Rose
The weapon feels foreign in my hand, heavier than Iexpected, but my finger finds the trigger and with it the chest of my brother. “Let us go.”
“Really?” Gabriel shakes his head. “You don’t even know how to use that.”
“Point and pull the trigger.” I wave the gun slightly. “Doesn’t seem that complicated.”
“Put it down before you hurt yourself.” He sighs, like I’m a child refusing to eat vegetables. “We both know you won’t shoot me.”
“Try me.” But my palm is already sweating, the gun slippery in my grip.
Could I really pull this trigger? End my brother’s life?
I need to, if I want Knox to get out of here safely.
“You were always soft.” Gabriel takes another step closer. “All that potential wasted on a girl who cried over broken toys.”
Soft? Fucking soft?
What about the time he locked me in the basement storage room for six hours because I touched his beloved microscope? Eight years old, screaming until my throat was raw while he sat outside the door, telling me it was an ‘experiment in sensory deprivation.’ Or when he put crushed sleeping pills in my juice to see how my ‘compromised system’ would metabolize them. I was nine and couldn’t wake up for twenty-three hours.
Dad found out about that one. His only concern? That Gabriel hadn’t properly documented the results.
Gabriel always was Dad’s little science prodigy. Daddy’s perfect heir. I was just the broken doll they needed to fix. The family project. Their living experiment.
“You’re right.” My voice steadies as the memories crystallize my resolve. “I did cry when you dissected my pet rabbit and left its organs in labeled jars on my dresser. I was seven, you sick?—”
“Biology lesson.” Gabriel spreads his hands. “Come on. Drop the gun. You won’t do it.”
He has always known me better than I wanted to admit. Killing has never been in my nature. Not even when the zombies took over, not even when our world crumbled into dust and ash. I survived by being invisible, not by taking lives.
“Let us go,” I plead, hating the desperation leaking into my voice. “You’ve taken enough.”
“Sister.” His voice softens, almost gentle. “Please.”
The gun wavers in my grip, heavy as my conscience. Is this what the apocalypse does? Turn soft girls into killers? Or was this always inside me, waiting for the right moment to emerge?
“You won’t do it.” Gabriel takes another step. “You can’t.”
Each beat of my heart echoing the same truth: I want to live. I want freedom. I want Knox. I want my fucking life back.
My arm screams from the strain of holding it up, but I refuse to let go.
Three, two?—
NINETEEN
PARIS
“But I will.” Min-ji materializes from the shadows of the building behind Gabriel, lab coat fluttering in the morning breeze like the little Batman figure I had found. In her hands, a small pistol pointed directly at Gabriel’s head.
His voice carries a note of genuine surprise. “This is unexpected.”
“Let them go,” she says. “Or I’ll put a bullet in your skull.”
The guard holding Miller twitches, his gun starting to swing toward Min-ji.
Gabriel raises his hand. “Hold.”
The gun slips from my fingers, landing in the damp grass with a soft thud. Relief and shame wash through me in equal measure. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t pull the trigger, even to save myself, to save Knox.
