The truck sped across the parking lot, heading straight for the gun shop. Amber looked down at her seat belt to check it; it was fastened. She opened her mouth. She tried to scream but she just couldn’t push any noise out.
The truck bounced up and down as they raced forward. Pain flared up in her stomach as the truck jostled her around. She closed her eyes.
There was a thundering, crashing noise and an impact that rocked her forward in her seat. A piercing, intense stinging in her stomach. The wind was knocked out of her; she couldn’t breathe for a moment.
An alarm started ringing. She opened her eyes. The truck had knocked off the metal gate covering the gun shop entrance and crashed through the shop’s front windows. Dust and smoke lingered in the air.
Ross threw the car door open and stepped out into the shop. Amber stayed in the car, wincing through the pain. She watched as Ross ran over to the front counter and jumped over. A large metal locker had been knocked on its side during the crash, the door on the locker partially torn away. Ross pulled and yanked at the door and eventually pried it completely off. He pulled two shotguns out of the locker.
He ran to a glass display case on the other side of the shop. He swung one of the shotguns like a bat and shattered the glass. He reached past shards of broken glass and grabbed a few handguns. He took a plastic bag from behind the counter and threw the guns inside. The alarm continued to wail.
Seated in the car, Amber watched Ross run around the gun shop like a madman, the truck’s headlights illuminating the shop interior. She glanced over and saw the keys dangling from the truck’s ignition. If she dug deep down, she thought she could find the strength to power past the pain and drag her body over to the driver’s seat. She could drive away. Leave Ross behind. End this right now.
It was an unbelievable thought, abandoning Ross—but she didn’t know what else to do. This was not going to end well. Whatever came next, it would not be good. Ross was completely out of control. He was going to hurt someone else, probably kill someone. All these guns combined with the way he was acting would only equal disaster.
She was scared of Ross—she couldn’t believe it, but she was. That had never happened before. She’d seen him do plenty of crazy things over the years but she’d never reached a point where she was frightened of him. But the way he’d beaten the old man earlier had rattled her; it had been vicious. And now Ross seemed so angry and determined. The look in his eyes was wild, completely out of control.
Outside the car, Ross threw open a drawer behind the counter. He picked up boxes of bullets and shells and threw them to the ground until he found what he was looking for. He tossed a few boxes into the bag with the guns. Grabbed another shotgun and set it inside.
So many guns.
She sat in the truck, thinking about what she should do next, trying to focus her muddled thoughts, as the alarm continued to scream out. It was so loud that she didn’t hear the sirens as the police cars pulled up outside.
She saw the flashing red and blue lights out of the corner of her eye. Amber snapped her head toward them.
Two cop cars were parked out front of the gun shop.
The moment she saw them, she knew: it was over. This was going to be the end. They were trapped. Cornered. Nowhere to go.
“Shit!”
Ross screamed the word, staring at the police cruisers out front. He ran across the shop floor to the truck.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he said.
He threw the bag of guns on the front seat. Reached inside and pulled out a shotgun. Grabbed a box of shells. Dropped it. Shells spilled onto the truck floor. He cursed and fumbled around on the floor until he found two of the shells. He loaded them into the shotgun.
He aimed the gun toward the store’s shattered front window and fired two booming shots out toward the parking lot. She heard yelling from out front but couldn’t understand what was being said. Another police cruiser arrived. Three cars out front now.
Ross grabbed one of the handguns and loaded it with bullets, hands shaking, breathing heavy. He set the handgun on the front seat.
“I can take them,” he said.
She shook her head weakly.
“I’m serious,” Ross said as he loaded the shotgun with more shells. “Take them out and leave.”
“N-no—”
“I got this!”
Outside, two more police cruisers arrived, lights flashing. An officer emerged from one and peeked out from behind the open car door. He was baby-faced, looked like a teenager.
She glanced at Ross. His eyes burned with intensity. He fired two blasts from the shotgun. Seemed like he wasn’t really aiming at anything, just firing randomly in the direction of the police cars.
He leaned back into the front seat. Grabbed more shells off the floor and reloaded the shotgun.
“Let’s give up,” she said.
“Surrender?” Ross said. “Fuck that.”
“P-please,” she said.
She watched him clenching his jaw as he forced more shells into the chamber, breathing heavily. There was no use in trying to convince him to leave. No point in trying to make him stop. His mind was made up.
This was where it would end. Ever since they’d double-crossed Shane, she’d held on to a faint bit of hope that they could have a happy ending. No matter how long the odds or how hopeless things seemed, she believed. But no longer. Ross was just too out of control. There was no way they were getting out of this.
She tried to force out a few words but Ross wasn’t paying attention to her. He fired two booming shots from the shotgun, then grabbed the handgun off the front seat and fired more shots out at the police cars. He threw the handgun back onto the front seat. He leaned over the front seat, looking on the floor mat for more of the shotgun shells he’d dropped earlier. The handgun he’d set on the front seat was still there, only a few feet away. She grabbed it and lifted it up. It was a struggle; the gun felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds.
She didn’t want any innocent people to die. Didn’t want to see anyone else get injured. All she’d wanted was a life with Ross. The Ross she loved. If that wasn’t possible, then there was no point.
In the second that passed before she ended his life, she thought of the good times. The happy memories. There’d been a lot of them. The good times before the drugs, back when she toured with Ross and Shane and life was nothing but fun. She remembered how empty she’d felt without him when he was locked up. She remembered those perfect few months in Nebraska after Ross was released. He’d vowed that he was a changed man, and he had been. He’d been free—free of drugs and free of Shane. All she’d wanted was to have that life again. That was it. Just the two of them, together. She’d been so positive that she could save Ross, but she wouldn’t even have a chance to try. They would never even reach that point.
Maybe this was for the best. She’d given it a shot. Had they stayed with Shane, it was only a matter of time before Ross’s life would’ve ended, anyway. The drugs would’ve claimed him, or he and Shane would’ve continued on a path that would’ve led only to self-destruction. At least this way, she’d tried to save him. She’d failed—but she’d given it a shot.
Beside her, Ross continued fumbling around on the floor, searching for the shotgun shells.
She loved him. Even more than that, she loved the man she knew he could be. And she owed it to herself—more important, owed it to him—to try to help him become that person. But it just wasn’t going to happen. It was over. He wasn’t going to go down without a fight, but she wasn’t going to let him go down with a fight and harm anyone else. It was time to end it.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered.
Her hand trembling, she moved the gun so it was only inches away from the top of his head. She mustered every ounce of strength she had left to clench her fist and pull the trigger. There was a gunshot, loud but still drowned out by the alarm, then an explosion of red that spurted out of his head, splattering onto the truck’s dashboard. The recoil of the gunshot sent her arm flailing to the side. Ross’s body slumped down to the seat, then fell to the ground outside the truck. He lay there, motionless, blood pouring from the gunshot wound and covering the floor of the gun shop.