Page 104 of Beautiful Ruins
She dragged me into her bedroom and slammed the door shut behind us.
The sound echoed through the room.
“What are you doing?”I whispered, my breath shaking.
She didn’t answer.
Instead she crossed the room with alarming purpose, heading straight for her dresser.
She yanked open the top drawer and reached inside.She pulled out a gun.
I froze.
“Tone—”
She turned toward me with a crooked grin that tried very hard to look casual.It didn’t quite succeed.
“Surprise.”
My mouth fell open.
“You have a gun.”
“I have several,” she boasted, rather matter-of-factly.
She checked the magazine with the practiced ease of someone who had done it many times before.
Click.Metal sliding against metal.
Her hands were steady.Her eyes were not.
Another burst of gunfire erupted somewhere outside the house.Closer still.
She glanced briefly toward the window before looking back at me.
“I was hoping we wouldn’t need this,” she confessed.
“This is insane,” I whispered.
My voice sounded small even to my own ears.
She stepped closer, keeping the weapon angled safely toward the floor but holding it with firm certainty.
The grin faded slightly.What replaced it was something far more serious.Tension.Fear.Resolve.
“It’s either us, Izzy,” she whispered.
Her eyes held mine.
“Or them.”
The words landed between us in a way that suggested a decision needed to be made quickly.
Another gunshot exploded downstairs.
Loud enough this time that the floor beneath our feet seemed to tremble.
My pulse thundered in my ears.
