Page 154 of The Darkness is Calling

“Artem...” My voice trembles. Terror pricks my body like knives, but his eyes manage to bring me one second of comfort.

“Remember what I made you promise me.”

“Silence!” the Russian yells and punches Artem across the face.

I let out a short scream, but that only makes him turn his attention to me and aim the gun from the table at me. He gestures to one of the men, and he unlocks my handcuffs, then Artem’s as well. With his hands newly freed, Artem lightly rubs his freshly struck cheekbone.

“Ladies have the honor, suka,” Serioja says.

Dear God, this can’t be happening!

“I can’t...” I murmur, the knot in my throat barely holding back the sobs that want to shake my body. “No... I can’t...”

“I’ll start,” Artem says in a flat tone, reaching for the gun at once, aiming it at my head, and telling me with tenderness, “I love you, dusha moya.”

I am like a statue that no longer even breathes, and in the next second, he... pulls the trigger.

They say your whole life flashes before your eyes in a moment like this, but that doesn’t happen to me. It lasts only a second, one in which all I can do is look into his eyes and think of absolutely nothing.

Empty.

But the gun makes a dry click that makes my heart explode, only to restart and beat even harder.

The rush of adrenaline suffocates me, and I begin to cry. My brain knows it survived this time, but the nightmare isn’t over. It has only just begun.

Artem places the revolver on the table and pushes it toward me.

“Do it, Katya. The faster we move, the faster this will all be over.”

My hands are paralyzed, tears streaming down my cheeks, but like a robot, I manage to take the gun trembling between my fingers.

“I like the dress,” my husband tells me whit a soft voice, tilting his head slightly to one side. “A shame these losers ruined it.”

“Get on with it!” Oliver shouts, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m already getting bored.”

I slowly raise the gun.

Dear God, please save him. I can die, but not him.

“Do it the way I did. Just push the trigger, and that’s it.”

And that’s exactly what I do, just like the man I love told me. The man who told me to trust him on our wedding night, though I don’t think even he expected our end to find us like this.

I barely pull the trigger before the gun goes off, but it makes the same dry click as before.

Relief comes with a fresh wave of tears.

I almost throw the revolver on the table, but Artem takes it quickly. He doesn’t even give me time to breathe before he fires toward me with such ease that I start to believe he truly wants this to end, even if it means one of us will die.

“How eager he is!” the disgusting Russian laughs.

But my lover’s words come from another landscape entirely, one calm and full of tenderness.

“I missed you these days,” he says as he turns the barrel toward me. “More than I did during the days you were gone.”

This time, my tears turn into sobs, and Artem leans over the table enough to place his palms over mine. Beneath our hands lies the gun that will destroy any chance we have at happiness.

“I missed you too...” I confess, but I don’t get to tell him what I feel in my heart, because Oliver shoves him, forcing him to move away from me again.