Her hand was shaking, which meant her trigger finger was shaking, too.
And then everything moved in slow motion. The husband stood there with his hands up, fear in his eyes, while the wife started to stir. And then she sat straight up in bed and screamed.
The gunshots rang out, deafening me as I watched the man fall to the floor. Blood oozed from his neck and he choked as he tried to breathe. I moved quickly toward Vick, but it was too late. The wife was running toward the door and Vick was shooting over and over again.
Everything went silent, except for the sounds of the husband taking his last breath, and the wife beginning to choke and gasp for life. And then, the screams of a baby in the room next door.
Vick dropped the gun, and took off running as if I wasn’t even in the room with her. Her loud footsteps on the wooden stairs echoed throughout the house. I stood there in shock, sure that I was dreaming, but the woman started moaning. I should have ran, but I didn’t. Instead, I dropped to my knees next to the woman dying on the floor and I grabbed her hand.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to her. “I’m so sorry.”
Her wide eyes were trained on me as her body started to shake. Blood splattered from her mouth and landed on her lips. She was trying to say something, but I couldn’t understand. Leaning down closer to her, I turned my head so that she could speak in my ear.
“Please,” she struggled to say.
And then I felt her shaking fingers on mine as she placed something hard and cold in my palm. She closed my hand around the object and pleaded to me with her eyes. I didn’t know what she was asking me for, but I couldn’t help her.
I should have called the police or the ambulance, but I wasn’t thinking straight and I was scared. I’d never seen anyone die before and my stomach was twisting with fear. All I did was lean over her and watch as a tiny tear fell from her eye and she took her last breath.
I opened my hand and looked down at the locket in my palm. What was she trying to tell me?
And then a sound at my left made me jump and I looked up to see a young girl standing in the doorway looking back at me. She was no more than ten. Her tiny feet peeked out from under her nightgown as her fear-filled eyes took in the scene around her.
The woman obviously wanted me to have the locket. I didn’t know what else to do, so I popped the chain from around her neck. I stood holding her locket in my hand. My eyes clashed with the little girl’s once more, and then I took off, running past her and down the stairs. Once I lifted myself over the fence, I puked all over the ground, before running off into the darkness.
As badly as I wanted to turn myself in, it meant turning Vick in, too, and that was something I wasn’t willing to do. She was the only family I had—my baby sister. What she had done was wrong, but I couldn’t let her go to jail. I couldn’t.
That night, I changed. I lay in bed and blocked out all the memories of the night, cutting off my emotions completely, so that I didn’t feel the guilt or the hurt tearing me apart.
Popping open the locket the woman had given me, I saw two pictures inside. One of the little girl, and another of the baby I’d heard screaming. I’d witnessed two people die—parents. I’d left two children, mother and fatherless. I’d sentenced them to a life like mine. It was something I’d never get over for the rest of my life… never.
“What the hell are you talking about, Sebastian? We were both there.”
Her words pulled me from my memories. “You’re right. I never should have let you…” I didn’t finish.
“Are you thinking of ratting me out? The least you can do is tell me before you do.”
My gaze snapped in her direction. “You know me better than that. I’m not a fucking rat. I’d never do that to you and I’d never do that to Rosslyn. She can never find out what happened that night.”
“Oh, screw the bitch, Sebastian. I’m the one you should be loyal to. Me, not her.”
“I said, I wasn’t going to tell her. I can’t lose her, and if she finds out, she’ll leave me. I need her, Vick. She’s it for me.”
Vick’s face crumbled and she fell back a step. “But I thought…”
Even through my drunken haze, I didn’t miss the total devastation on her face. I’d suspected Vick’s feelings for me a couple of weeks ago, but tonight confirmed it. It was like a punch in the gut. She was in love with me.
How could I have not seen it all these years? She was like a sister to me, so it never occurred to me her feelings ran deeper than mine. She watched me screw anyone and everyone, and never batted an eyelash. But with Rosslyn things were different, and now all of Vick’s issues over the past few weeks made sense.