I KNEW WHAT I had to do. Like a flash, my phone came up. I found the video file and hit play before the revulsion growing in my stomach reached a point of no return. With my eyes burning, I relived the night I’d killed the Halo Killer.
I stared, transfixed by the screen. The shot jostled as I moved through the parking lot. Zora arrived. I pulled away from her and ran. We stood in the cloistering outhouse. The sound of Jasper’s moped was clear. The tension of Zora’s face was clear. The entire scene was utter gold.
Zora raced from the outhouse. I didn’t move right away. Seeing that embarrassed me, but it could be edited out. I’d keep the part when I heard the noise outside and pointed the gun in that direction, at the old cracked mirror. When I finally exited the bathroom, the camera panned down to Zora, her face shrouded in shadow. Somehow I lifted the phone up and caught the flash of movement on the dune. Though out of focus, I knew it to be Jasper, baiting me, drawing me away from her. He searched for Miracle. That had to be it.
Zora’s scream stopped my heart for a second time. The shot swung wildly. Then Jasper attacked. The phone fell to the sand, faceup. The moon stared down like an unfocused eye. Grunts. Pleads. Then, to end it, a gunshot.
There was more to follow. It played on my phone, but I had left. I had returned to that night. I relived it over and over for I don’t know how long. Eventually I returned to the real world to find the battery on my phone near dead and a trail of dried tears on both cheeks.
I fell into a fitful sleep on the couch. In the middle of the night, though, my eyes snapped open.
Protect her!
I fell off the seat, snatching my phone so quickly that I tore the charger from the wall. Kneeling on the cold hardwood floor, I accessed the recording a second time. My fingers spun like fine silk, cuing the shot to the moment Jasper arrived on the scene. With it on pause, I cranked up the volume. My finger shaking, I took a deep breath and hit play.
Zora convinced me to take the gun again. She slipped out of the outhouse to confront him. Frustrated, I stopped the video.
“Shit,” I hissed.
It could not have been a dream. I’d heard it. I knew I had. But I replayed that moment over and over, four times, and still nothing.
I slammed the phone on the ground, harder than I’d meant to. As those two words swirled in my head, other memories slipped in beside them. Cassandra’s reaction. Miracle’s lie. Jasper had toyed with me. He had run me ragged. I was sick. Dehydrated. Hallucinating. Or …
On the fifth replay, I let the clip run. I heard Zora’s body slam into the wall. I went outside, knelt at her side. And it was then that she whispered it to me.
“Just protect her,” Zora whispered.
I skipped back thirty seconds. Watched it again.
“Stop him,” she said. “It’s the only way to save her.”
I slapped the screen, pausing the video. My heart raced. A sweat broke out again, but this time it was different. Not the cold, cloying fingers of fear and anxiety. No PTSD. This was adrenaline.
It didn’t add up. Zora had told me at the café that Miracle wasn’t there. I played the clip again. Listened to her plea. I had to stop Jasper. It was the only way to save Miracle, who wasn’t even close by. Then I rewound the scene back to the time when Zora handed me the pistol. I saw how I’d fumbled it. I’d probably almost shot myself. Or her.
That’s when the inconsistency seemed crystal clear. If she was worried about Miracle and she was sure that stopping Jasper was the only way to save her—in that very moment, when our lives hung in the balance—why would she hand me the gun? Why not keep it herself? Face Jasper armed?
That’s when I realized a simple truth, something that had been bothering me for days. It wasn’t PTSD that kept me from finishing the film’s ending. Instead, I suddenly knew that there was more to the story. That the true ending hadn’t been written yet.