Page 38 of Hell and Halos

I'm thinkin' about the recoil.

I'm thinkin' about what a twelve-gauge does to a shoulder that weighs maybe sixty pounds soakin' wet.

I'm thinkin' about how she's gonna go flyin' backwards and how that round might blast a hole into somethin' that isn't Marcus White Jr.'s chest.

All of this is movin' through my head in the half-second between the whisper and the little mechanical ding! that cuts through the room like a verdict.

CHAPTER 10

The stickiness and smell of blood doesn't register until I step into the elevator and I can see myself in the closing metal doors. I am already ascending when I realize I have no pants on. And when I look down, my legs are covered in it.

What just happened?

What is going to happen next?

The car stops and that pause before the doors open feels like a whole entire eternity. But finally they do open.

To Legion.

To Cash.

To… "Mercy?" Holdin' a gun on me.

"Give me that," Cash says, wrestlin' a shotgun out of her hands. "You could've killed her!"

"But I didn't," Mercy snaps back.

Legion comes forward, hands on my face, eyes locked with mine. "Are you OK? What the fuck happened! We tried⁠—"

"He's dead," I say simply, but weakly too. "Marcus. He made me take him down there—" My eyes find Cash. "He… he told me things."

Legion pulls me into a hug. "It's OK. You're OK now."

"What is the damn code, Savannah," Cash says. "No one has the code. We've been up here for almost an hour trying to get in."

I mumble out the code as Legion leads me over to the overstuffed chair. As I sink into it—unable to stop myself from regretting how I'm absolutely gonna ruin this custom fabric with the blood stains—the elevator doors close and Cash is gone.

Wyatt comes rushin' in. "Got 'em!" Then takes a step back. "Savannah! You're here!"

"She just came up," Legion says. Then he looks Wyatt in the eyes. "Cash went down. Marcus is dead."

For a moment, Wyatt just looks at me. No expression or nothin'. Then… "Fuck yeah. Fuck. Yes, Savannah." He pumps his fist. "Yes. That son of a bitch. You did it, right? You got him?"

I nod. Tears slippin' down my cheeks. "I had to beat him in the head with a camera."

There's an awkward pause here. A silence that doesn't have anything to fill it. And then… Wyatt bellows out a laugh. "A camera!" The laugh becomes a full-on guffaw. "A camera, Savannah?"

"I couldn't get to the gun," I say. "I needed ten seconds to get the damn safe open, and there were no extra ten seconds anywhere! The best I could do was a Phase One loaded with a 240 mm!"

"Shhh," Legion says. "It's fine, Savannah. You did good, baby. You don't have to explain."

"A camera," Wyatt continues laughing, shaking his head. "Marcus White Jr. dies by camera. That's like literal poetic justice. Oh, Savannah. Eleanor would be so damn proud."

It's a throwaway comment. People make them all the time. Eleanor would be so damn proud. But it hits me sideways for some reason.

And I'm about to let it go, but then he says, almost to himself, "Wherever she is, she's smilin' right now. She's watchin' us right now, mutterin' 'It worked, it worked, it worked,' over and over again."

I go absolutely still. "What?" I've turned in Legion's embrace, facing my middle brother. Lookin' him right in the eyes with a question. Somethin' I haven't done since we were teenagers. "What did you say?"