I trusted him. But he never deserved that trust.
Raylan did. I wish I could scream for him, like I did outside the barn. I wish he could swoop in and save me. But he’s five hundred miles from here. I spent all damn day driving away from him.
I’ll have to save myself, if I want to survive.
“Pick it up,” Oran barks at me.
I pick up the pill bottle. It’s small and light. The white pills rattle around inside.
“Swallow them,” Oran hisses.
I shake a few pills into my palm. Then I swallow them down with a gulp of scotch.
The clock is ticking. I probably only have thirty minutes or so before these start to kick in.
“Take them all,” Oran orders.
It probably doesn’t matter how many I take. I’ll have to puke them all up anyway. Or Oran will shoot me—and the pills won’t matter for a completely different reason.
I swallow the rest of the pills with the remainder of the scotch.
Tik tok, tik tok.
“What now?” I say to Oran.
“Now you write your suicide note,” he says.
“I need paper.”
Oran rummages in his desk. He pulls out a sheet of thick, creamy parchment paper. Only the best for Uncle Oran.
“What do you want me to write?” I say.
Oran tilts his head back, eyes closed, as he thinks about what it should say. I lift his gold-plated pen off of its stand.
“Dear family,” he begins. “I’m so sorry to do this to you. But I think it’s for the best. I’m in so much pain. I just can’t take it anymore . . . ”
He continues to dictate, and I scribble nonsense on the paper, pretending to write it down word-for-word. His suggestions are dramatic and ridiculous—not at all what I would write. Not that I would write anything at all, because I’d never fucking kill myself. Cal would know that, and Nessa too. No matter what happens, they’re not going to believe this bullshit.
“Sign it, Love, Riona,” Oran orders.
I scribble a signature that looks nothing like my own.
“Is that what you wanted?” I say, sitting back so he can examine the paper.
Oran leans on the desk, bending over the page so he can read what I wrote. I see his eyes scanning, then angry color coming into his face.
“No!” he cries. “That’s not—”
I grab the letter opener and stab it down onto the back of his hand. The tiny medieval sword goes all the way through his hand, pinning it to the desk.
Oran howls and swings the gun toward my face, but I grab his wrist with both hands and shove it upward. He jerks the trigger, firing into the ceiling three times. Plaster dust rains down on our heads.
I stomp on his foot hard with my cowboy boot, and then I bring my knee up into his groin. Oran doubles over, groaning and swearing.
I wrench the gun out of his hand.
Oran may not have actually been in the IRA, but he does know how to fight. As soon as I yank the gun away from him, he punches me right in the face. The blow knocks me backward, and the gun goes skittering out of my grip, disappearing under my chair.
Oran tries to rip his hand free from the desk, but it’s stuck. He howls with pain, then grabs the hilt of the letter opener to pull it free.
Meanwhile, I’m down on my knees groping under the chair, trying to feel for the gun. I don’t know if it’s because of the haymaker from Oran, or because the pills are starting to kick in, but my head is swimming. The floor seems to rock back and forth underneath of me, and I can’t find the gun.
Uncle Oran jumps on top of me, slamming me into the carpet with his full weight. He knocks the air out of my lungs so I’m gasping for breath, my head spinning worse than ever. Then he tries to drag me up again, pulling me away from the gun.
Right at that moment, my hands close around something cold and hard. I grip the handle and curl my finger around the trigger.
As Oran yanks me up, I swing the gun around and point it right at his face.
He freezes, his hands locked on my shoulders.
“You wouldn’t shoot your Uncle . . . ” he says, his yellowed teeth bared in a stiff rictus of a smile.
“I absolutely would,” I say.
I pull the trigger, shooting him right between the eyes.
Oran’s limp hands release me, and he falls backward. I tumble back as well, unsteady on my feet. When I fall, the back of my head hits the carpet with a thud.
I roll over, and the whole room rolls around me. I jam my fingers down my throat, trying to make myself vomit. I gag, but nothing comes up.
Shit.
I try again, but my hand feels numb and floppy on the end of my wrist. My throat is swollen. Maybe that’s why I can’t throw up.
I try to get to the phone instead, but it seems a million miles away on Uncle Oran’s desk. I’m crawling and crawling, but not actually moving anywhere. My knees slide on the oriental rug.
Oh my god, I think my idiot uncle is finally going to succeed in killing me, when it won’t even help him anymore.
I think I’m still crawling toward the phone, but my cheek is pressed against the carpet, so I can’t actually be moving.
I feel cold. Very cold.
I wish Raylan were holding me. There’s nothing warmer than his arms.
Goddamnit. What a sad way to go. With so many regrets in my heart . . .
Suddenly, I feel myself float upward. I’m still freezing cold, but I’m pressed against something warm. I hear a steady thud against my ear.
I open my eyes again, and I see Raylan’s face. That’s impossible, so I know I must be dreaming.
If this is my last dream, I’m going to enjoy it.
Raylan’s strong arms are locked around me, carrying me out of the office . . .
26
Raylan
When I land in Chicago, I take a cab right to Riona’s office building. I feel certain that’s where she’ll be, and sure enough, I see a light burning in her corner office.
Carl is manning the front desk. He recognizes me from all the days I tailed Riona, and he waves me in saying, “She’s already upstairs.”
I take the elevator up, my heart beating hard. I already went over all the things I wanted to say to her on the flight over. All I’m doing now is hoping against hope that when she sees me, her face lights up with happiness, not annoyance.
But when I get to her floor, her office is empty. Her light is on and her chair is swiveled around, as if she was sitting in it not long before. But there’s no one around. The floor is silent.
I stand there waiting, wondering if she went to the bathroom. Carl said she was up here—he would have noticed if she left.
I peek my head out the doorway and see a faint glow of light down the hall.
I head in that direction, recognizing the route to Oran’s office. I’m walking slowly at first, thinking that Riona must be talking to her uncle. But it’s too quiet, too still. There’s a metallic scent in the air, and something else—a faint whiff of smoke. I start to jog, and then I run. I shove my way through Oran’s door.
Oran is spread-eagle on the carpet, blank eyes staring up at the ceiling. A round, black hole marks the middle of his forehead, and a stain spreads out from under his head like a dark halo. Riona lays ten feet away, facedown.
An inhuman sound comes out of me—halfway between a roar and a sob. I run over to her and roll her over, terrified at what I’m about to find.