I suppressed a shudder as my skin chilled around me like a cloak of ice.
She turned to me slightly, still holding the gun at my father. “It’s your choice, my beautiful son. Either we’re all together in this life…or the next. What will it be?”
“I’m not sure”—my voice cracked—“what you mean.” In reality, I had an inkling of exactly what she meant. My heart thundered, and a wave of sickness traveled through me.
“Darling, you’re not a simpleton. You’re the son of two geniuses. You know very well what I mean. You choose. Do you and I and your father stay together here, without the rest of these people, or do the three of us go together into the next life?”
My blood pulsed in my head like a freight train. Was she truly asking me to choose whether my siblings or I lived?
No.
I’d just found happiness with Ruby.
But Talon was healing. Joe and Melanie were having a baby. Marjorie was young, so young, only twenty-five years old.
My father was dying anyway, and Wendy’s life wasn’t worth anything to anyone.
But my life…
Damn it, I wanted my life! I wanted a life with Ruby, with our children, with my brothers and sister. My true siblings, even if I’d been borne to this lunatic.
“Wendy,” my father interjected. “I will go with you into the next life. Our son deserves a life here. Don’t put him through this.”
“Why not? It’s time to find out where his loyalty lies.”
“You’re asking him to choose between his own life and his siblings. It’s not fair.”
“What if the three of us go off somewhere together?” I said, the words coming out rapid and jumbled. “You don’t have to kill my brothers and my sister. We can keep them away from us. You guys will leave us alone, right?”
“O-Of course,” Marjorie stammered. “Won’t we?”
My two brothers and Jade said nothing. Even Joe was speechless, his face pale and his eyes…something different about his eyes, something I’d never seen before. Fear. He was scared.
“No,” Wendy said. “My mind is made up. I deserve closure, and this is how I aim to get it. I’ve waited long enough to have my family together, and I won’t have anyone fucking it up for me.”
I knew the answer in my heart before I voiced it. Talon, Joe, and I had recently had a conversation about the horror Talon had lived through. He’d told us that he’d have gone through it willingly if it meant saving us from the same fate. Joe and I had both agreed. We would do the same.
And I would do that now.
“I choose my siblings.” My voice was strangely monotonous, but it didn’t crack. “They will stay. We will go.”
“No!” Ruby and Marjorie shouted together.
Ruby stood, leaving her father’s lifeless body and running to my arms.
“Easy,” I said, holding her tightly. “I love all of you.”
Joe finally came out of his stupor. “We’re not going to let this happen, Ry.”
I eyed my mother, who still had the gun trained on our father. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay. May I please say something to each of them first?”
“Of course, dear.”
“Joe.” I looked to my big brother, trying to draw in his strength.
“Hey, you wait. This isn’t going down like this,” Joe said. “I’ll fix it. Somehow.”
Always the big brother. But he couldn’t fix this. “We don’t have a choice. You’re having a baby. You need to live. You’re the bravest and strongest of all of us, and you’re going to be a hell of a father, Joe. Tell your child about me. Please.”
I shifted my gaze to Talon, wise beyond his years, mostly from losing his innocence at such a tender age. “And Tal, you’ll always be my hero. Be happy. Please. Every minute.”
“How can I be happy if I lose my little brother?”
“Because you have your wife. You have Joe and Marj. You’ll have children someday.”
“Ryan, please!” Ruby shouted.
“Baby. Try to understand.”
She gulped back sobs, still holding on to me as I turned to my sister, who represented youth and joy. “Marj, you’re so young, so full of life and energy. Find your life and live it. For me.”
My baby sister said nothing, just bit on her lip, sobbing.
I turned to the woman I loved. She nodded slightly at me, and an understanding passed between us.
“I love you, baby,” I said. “You’ve shown me things I didn’t think were possible. I’ll always love you.”
My mother pointed her gun at my heart.
I pushed Ruby away as hard as I could, and she fell to the floor, sliding against her father’s body.
I closed my eyes and absorbed every fear I’d known in my short life. What would it feel like to die?
“No.” My father’s voice. “You will not kill our son. Not before you kill me.”
“Fine.”
I opened my eyes. She pointed the gun back at my father. I breathed a sigh of relief without meaning to.
“You may have your last request, Brad. You know I could never deny you anything.”
She fired the gun, and my father slumped over his desk. Screams echoed, as if they were being yelled from the top of Pikes Peak.
My mother turned to me.
And a shot rang out.
My jaw is clenched, and still I’m determined not to interrupt my father.
But he interrupts himself.
He stops talking.
“Dad?”
His lips are trembling. “I don’t know if I can describe the sheer terror I felt when I heard that gunshot. I thought my life was over, Ava. That my psychopath mother had ended my life rather than let me live without her.”
“Oh, Daddy…” Tears flow from my eyes.
“But then…there was no pain. No blood. And I could still see everyone. Perhaps I was dead, looking down, until I realized my mother had fallen, and Ruby—your mother—was on the floor, next to her dead father, holding his gun.”
I gulp back my tears, determined to see this through. “Continue, Daddy. Please. Tell me everything.”
Ruby ran to me and fell into my arms. “Are you all right?”
I didn’t say anything, just held on to her and wept against the top of her head.
Marjorie had run to our father. I had no idea what Joe, Talon, and Jade were doing. All I could do was hold on to Ruby and never let go.
I sniffled. “You saved my life, baby.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save your father. I was so relieved when she took the gun off you that I didn’t act quickly enough. I’m so sorry.”
“He’s ill. He would have gone to prison. You saved him suffering through cancer while he was incarcerated.”
“I hoped you understood that I was going for my father’s gun. I should have taken it sooner, but when she pointed that thing at you…” Ruby choked out a sob.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry.”
I kissed the top of her head. “You’re here. I’m here. My brothers and sister are here. That’s what matters right now.” I pressed my lips to her forehead. “We both lost fathers today. Fathers who weren’t anything close to what they should have been…but they both ended up saving our lives.”