In the moments after, three things happen at once.
Ivy pulls the trigger again.
Ethan dives to the right.
Sutton rushes forward, something like a growl emitting from her throat, toward the woman who is her child, a glint of silver in her hand as the trench knife that Ethan keeps hidden in the couch cushions slashes down toward Ivy’s throat.
It is like Sutton has become someone else. A switch has been flipped. She’s felt it flip once before, when she was thirteen and locked in heated battle with her stepfather.
She feels it again now.
It is rage, pure and incandescent, the power and fury of the angels in the palm of her hand. It courses through her, blinds her, eliminates judgment and worry, makes her a machine.
There is a flash of silver in the moonlight.
The knife is hot in her hands.
The blood is thick on her palms.
Ethan is by her side, holding Ivy down.
Sutton drops the knife and sinks to her knees.
The growing wail of the siren accompanies her heartbeat.
Her husband kneels beside her and holds her to his chest.
“It’s over, Sutton,” he says, again and again through his tears. “It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.”
And when she comes back to herself, oh so many minutes later, the blank eyes of the woman who tried to take away her life stare up at her. Cold, empty eyes. The monster that claimed to be hers, staring, staring, staring.