I don’t know how she did it. A couple of weeks ago, she could barely keep her eyes open for more than twenty minutes. But after I left Victoria’s room she got the gun from that trunk and wheeled herself down the hallway. She can’t move her right hand, which is still motionless in the armrest, so it looks like she moved her chair using her left hand and her left foot to push herself down the hall.
She has a flashlight balanced in her lap, which makes the shadows on her face look almost ghoulish. Her right eye is pinned on Adam. The left one is gazing off somewhere else, but the right is like ice. I never want anyone to look at me the way she’s looking at him.
Adam takes a step back and raises his hands in the air. “Victoria…” “Don’t.” She shakes the gun with her left hand. It’s surprisingly steady,
considering her left hand is often shaky. I remember how steady she was when she fed herself breakfast this morning. Being off those medications really made a difference. “You… you…” She struggles to find the right words. But then she does: “I’m going to kill you.”
Adam’s eyes widen. “Please, Victoria.” He sounds like he’s choking. “Don’t do this.”
She snorts.
“I love you.” He lowers his hands and puts them together, pleading. “Victoria, sweetheart. You know how I feel about you. Please don’t do this…”
The gun doesn’t budge from her hand. “Irina…”
“Nothing happened between me and Irina.” His voice is slow and careful. “I swear to you, Vicky. Nothing happened.”
“Bullshit!” Some drool leaks out of the right side of her mouth. “That’s… bullshit. You and her…”
“No…”
“And… her!” Now suddenly, the gun is pointed at me. I had been trying to be inconspicuous. So much for that. “I know.”
Oh God, Victoria is going to kill me. After she kills Adam, I’m next. Or maybe I’ll be first. I don’t know about the order, but it doesn’t matter.
Either way, I’m toast.
This is how it’s going to end. I’m going to be murdered by a crazy woman in her own home.
Adam glances back at me. He hangs his head. “Victoria, I’m so sorry. I swear, I’ll make it up to you—anything you want. Tell me what you want.”
Thankfully, she pointed the gun away from me—for now. She stares straight at him. “I want… you.” His face brightens only momentarily and then she adds: “Dead.”
She’s going to kill him. She’s really going to kill him.
He knows it. All the color drains out of his face. He looks like he’s about to start crying. “Victoria, please… don’t do this.”
But she’s not going to change her mind. I can see it in her eyes. And then she pulls the trigger.
The gunshot is surprisingly loud. So loud that I am momentarily disoriented. But not as much as Victoria, whose entire wheelchair jerks back. I look over at Adam, who is still on his feet. He’s not dead. I’m not even sure she hit him with the bullet. He looks behind him and we both see the defect in the wallpaper of the hallway.
The flashlight rolled out of Victoria’s lap when she shot the gun. She’s struggling to right herself. This is my only shot. If I don’t do something now, she’s going to kill Adam with the next bullet. And then me next.
So I lunge at her.
It was too dark to realize this, but she was only about a foot away from the staircase. So when I jump at her, her chair wheels backward and the back wheels slip on the steps. She realizes it’s happening a second before I do and lets out an anguished scream.
And together, we go down.
