Page 82 of Too Late

Her eyes widen and she immediately begins shaking her head. “I don’t,” she blurts out. “Please don’t kill him, it’ll make things worse for you. I loveyou, Asa. Please don’t kill anyone else.”

I’m staring right at her, looking back and forth between her eyes. It’s hard to see any truth there, because all I see is the concern she has for Luke written across her face. “Don’t worry, Sloan. He’s probably wearing a bulletproof vest.”

I turn my head and lift my gun, aiming it straight at Luke’s chest. I fire the shot. Luke’s whole body jerks against the wall. His hands go to his chest just as the blood begins pouring through his fingers. He immediately falls limp onto his side.

“Oh. My bad. I was wrong.”

Sloan is screaming. Screaming his fuckingname, screamingno, screamingwhat have you done, screaming hisnameagain,screaming, screaming, screaming.

She’s fuckingscreaming.

She has fuckingtears.

Forhim.

I grab her by the goddamn arms and pick her up, dropping her back down on the bed. I straddle her while she covers her head and screams even louder, the tears flooding down her face.

“Why are you fuckingscreaming, Sloan?WHY?!”

I can hear my father’s voice repeatingwhore, whore, whore. I smack my forehead to get it to stop.

Stop, stop, stop.

She doesn’t love him. She lovesme. Forever.

“You don’t love him, Sloan,” I say, my face twisting in pain. “Youdon’t, he brainwashed you.” I grab her cheeks and press my lips to hers. She’s trying to pull away from me, trying to fight me.

“Yes I do!” she screams. “I love him, I hate you, I love him, I fuckinghateyou!”

She’s going to regret this. She’s going to regret this more than she’s ever regretted anything in her whole fucking worthless life. If she thinks she’s sad now watching that bastard die, wait until she seesmedie. Because every motherfucker left in this house will be dead, including me, before I go to prison for this dipshit’s murder.

She barely knew the guy. She’s loved me fortwo fucking years! My death would fuckingdevastateher. She’ll be crying so hard, she won’t have enough air to say she hates anyone.

Whore, whore, whore.

I smack my hand against my forehead again. She’s no longer screaming now. She’s just sobbing uncontrollably.

“You’re going to regret this, Sloan. You think you’re crying hard now? When I die, it’ll fuckingkillyou.It. Will. Fucking. Kill. You.”

She shakes her head back and forth, sobbing through her words. “It’stoo lateto kill me, Asa. You killed me a long time ago.”

She’s delusional.

She’s goddamn delusional.

I laugh, knowing how much this is going to upset her. I laugh, knowing how much she’s going to regret everything she just said to me. I wish I could be here to see it when she finally realizes how much I mean to her. How much I’ve done for her. What her life will be like without me.

I press my mouth against her trembling lips.

I press the gun to the side of my head and I pull the fucking—

FORTY-TWO

LUKE

Youknow what they say dying feels like?

No. Youdon’tknow what they say, because no onesaysit. The people who die aren’t around to tell us what it felt like when it happened. The people who lived never died to begin with, so they’re unable to describe it.

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