TWENTY-NINE

CELESTE

“Whoops,” I said, with a laugh that sounded a little too nervous. “Forgot about that.”

A single brow rose higher as he held the gun between us.

“For protection,” I said.

“This is bigger than the protection you usually carry in such situations, Lizzy.”

I laughed again, too hard now, at his joke. “Oh, I have those, too. That was just extra.” I propped onto my elbows. “You took my other gun, Liam. I wasn’t sure what you intended, so I armed myself.”

He turned Daisy’s gun this way and that, his hand around the grip, finger poised beside the trigger.

“Can you put that aside, please?” I said.

He only moved it out of my reach.

“Liam?” I said. “Please? You’re making me nervous.”

I tried to say it jokingly, but a wisp of actual worry slipped out, and his smile twitched as his eyes glittered.

“Liam,” I said, firmly, and that too was wrong, damn it. I sounded as if I were reprimanding a small child. His mouth tightened before he found that smirk again, holding the gun out of my reach. When the barrel swung my way, he made it look accidental. It was not accidental.

“Please, Liam?” I said, and I granted him the satisfaction of my fear. “There’s a reason I have more than one gun.” Deep breath. “This isn’t the first time a lover has pointed a weapon at me. You know Aaron. You know what he’s like.”

Something flashed behind his eyes, and while I couldn’t identify it, that look hit me square in the gut, and I knew that was not the reaction I wanted. Not at all.

“Aaron pointed a gun at you?” He took a firmer grip on the pistol. “Like this?”

It was aimed straight at my chest. My heart seized. I forced myself to whisper, “Yes. Now, please—”

“How about this?”

He raised the gun to eye level, and I was staring down the barrel, and I saw Aaron’s face, and my bladder spasmed.

“Liam?” I said, as calmly as I could. “Please. This isn’t funny.”

“Take off your jeans.”

“Liam,” I said, sharper. “This isn’t—”

“Take. Off. Your. Jeans.”

I swallowed audibly and undid the button. As I shimmied the jeans over my hips, he relaxed, and I sprang, grabbing his gun arm and slamming him backward to the ground. The shock of it relaxed his grip, and then I had the gun, and he was on his back, and I was pointing it at his face.

“Elizabeth…” he said, his voice unsteady. “Put down the gun.”

“How about a please?”

“This isn’t funny.”

“Is there an echo here?” I tilted my head as if listening. “Could have sworn I said the exact same thing when you were holding this gun to my head. And how did you respond? Told me to take off my jeans so you could rape me at gunpoint.”

He flinched. “It wasn’t like that.”

I moved the barrel closer to his eye. “It was exactly like that.”

“I was playing,” he said, a whine touching his voice. “I thought you were, too.”

“Bull. Shit. I was scared, and you liked it.”

He shifted under me and cleared his throat. When he spoke, the lawyer had moved in. Brisk, firm. “Yes, I went too far, but don’t embarrass yourself by pretending you’re going to pull that trigger.”

Embarrass myself?”

“Did I mention how poorly you bluff? You’re keeping your trigger finger on the grip. That means you have no intention of shooting me.”

I moved my finger to the trigger, just barely touching it. “Better?”

His face spasmed once, terror quickly masked by a smirk so tight a flinch would shatter it.

“You want to shoot me, Lizzy? Go ahead. Just know that the game is up. You—”

He grabbed the gun barrel and tried to yank it aside, but I held it in both hands, and it stayed pointed at his eye.

“Let go,” he said.

“Uh, why? I’m not the one who’ll catch a bullet in the face. Let go, and I’ll lower—”

He smacked the gun with his palm, and it jumped in my hand, and he fell back, and there was blood. Blood spurted from his eye.

Blood spurted from where his eye used to be.

There was a moment where I was confused. I was straddling his chest, and he was poised there, still up on one elbow, and there was a bloody hole instead of a blue eye, and I did not understand what I was seeing.

His mouth worked once. Opened as if in speech, and then his jaw dropped, and he slumped onto his back, and I still didn’t understand.

That was when I heard the shot.

No, that’s wrong. It’s all wrong. The sequence played that way in my head, but it wasn’t correct, and my mind scrambled to fix it, like a puzzle where you must place the panels in their proper sequence.

Liam’s mouth opening, as if to speak.

A shot instead of words.

Blood spraying.

A hole where his eye should have been.

So much blood. More than blood, too. Bits of bone and gray.

His jaw dropped. His elbows collapsed, and he fell on his back, staring up at the sky.

Dead.

Liam was dead.