The gun vibrates in my hand as I struggle to keep it held up, the ringing still loud in my ears after the crack of it firing. I fired a gun. My right-hand aches from clenching the handle so tightly, and sweat loosens my grip, but I can’t drop it.

Not yet.

Quinn and Josh stand motionless, and I don’t know who I hit. I knew in my head I needed to protect Quinn. Josh was so mad, so angry that I didn’t know what he’d do. I couldn’t watch as he stabbed Quinn. My mind cleared and all I could see was Josh attacking Quinn like a madman.

The gun was at my feet, so I picked it up. My thumb pushed the safety back, and I held it out in front of me, just like Quinn showed me, my shaky arms offering little stability. They were apart when I shot. I winced and held my breath as my finger squeezed against the trigger. It stunned me. The jolt shook my whole body. And then everything froze.

I fired a gun.

My arms grow tired as I fall back down against the wall that was propping me up. Quinn slumps down on top of Josh but then kneels back up. His brother doesn’t move, and even in the gloom, I can see a shadow spreading across his chest.

I push it all away. I close my eyes and focus on the song. My song that has kept me from the edge for so long, but now I’m afraid that won’t save me from my own mind.

I fired a gun and shot someone. I shot someone who’s loved.

Tears stream down my face. They gather around the dried blood on my cheek. It stings, and I want to scrub them away. Everything hurts, everything aches. My fingers, my hands, my arms. They begin to fail, and my arm slumps, removing the gun aimed at Quinn.

He’s pounding on Josh’s chest, his grunts and murmurs barely registering. I see the fight replay in front of my eyes as I watch on, as if I’m a bystander to my own crime. Their bodies tangling together, tossing and wrestling. Quinn is winning. He was trying to protect me, help me, until Josh sunk the blade into him. I couldn’t leave Quinn open and exposed. It was my fault he was here.

The recording in my mind plays on and I see me pick up the gun and pull the trigger.

An eruption of anger explodes from Quinn as he yells into the room. It shakes me from my introspection, and my eyes dart around, suddenly alert.

Blood. I see blood. Lots of blood. It saturates Quinn’s hands as he presses them against Josh’s chest. His face contorts his usual handsome features as he takes in what has happened.

My hands release the gun as if it’s a hot poker, the thud heavy on the floor. What have I done? What do I do?

Panic rears up from inside again, and my breathing comes in short, sharp bursts. I killed someone. I shot someone, and he’s lying in a pool of blood. I shot Quinn’s brother.

The thoughts race through my mind faster than I can process and it makes me dizzy. My head grows cloudy with visions the more I try to focus on anything. Everything blurs, a ringing in the back of my mind distracting me from concentrating on anything in front of me. My body shakes as I sit watching Quinn. He won’t give up on Josh, but the pain I’ve inflicted is written across his face and in every move his body makes.

The blood continues to spill across the floor, the rug in front of the fire seeping it up.

“Quinn… I’m… sorry.” I force the words out, each one lodged in my throat at first, but I don’t think he’s heard me, so I try again. “Quinn, I’m… sorry.”

“I can’t…”

“I couldn’t… I didn’t know what to do. He was going to kill you. He stabbed you.” The words rush out, the need to explain overtaking me.

“Shut the fuck up!”

His bellow fills the room and turns me ice cold. If I thought Josh was mad before, it was only because I’d not seen Quinn in a rage like this. My lips quiver and I scrunch my eyes closed, shielding me from anything further. I filter through my mind to find the music sheets and start to sing. My hands come up and cover my ears, blocking out anything that will remind me of reality.

The song sounds flat, but it keeps me grounded. I concentrate on the notes, but images invade. Images of Quinn smiling, Quinn out in the sunlight, Quinn asleep on the bed we shared. The picture of him with his brothers. I’ve ruined everything. The nightmare isn’t over; it won’t ever be over. It’s my life now, and I won’t ever be able to outrun it or escape it.

“Stand up, Emily.” The voice sounds far away, but that doesn’t make any sense. “Stand up.” I still don’t process what’s being said.

Rough hands grab at my shoulders, and I’m hauled to my feet.

“Look. Look at what you’ve done.” My face is forced next to the stony eyes of Josh. They’re blank. Completely expressionless, as if made of glass. But I can still see the crazy in them when he took the knife to my skin. I close my eyes and try to break away from Quinn.

“No, leave me… I don’t want to.”

“You’ll do as you’re told. You think you can kill my brother and get away with it?”

I turn around and Quinn is standing over his brother, the gun I used to kill him in his hand, aiming right for my chest. I don’t move. I don’t flinch. Maybe this would be the most natural solution? It would take all the pain away. I won’t be trapped by my feelings any longer. I won’t have to miss Quinn, or battle with the shame I feel whenever I think of him and what he’s done to me.

My lungs fill with air and I wait, holding my breath until my they scream for oxygen or I don’t need to breathe any longer. Quinn’s face is lined with aggression. All the evil and deceitful things he’s done in his life now let loose and they’re flowing around his body as fuel. He doesn’t need two hands to hold the gun. He grasps it with the surety of someone who has killed without thought or remorse.

But as I accept my fate, I watch as Quinn’s eyes soften. His jaw tenses, but he looks away, down to Josh before flicking back to me. He steps forward, bringing the barrel of the gun closer to my chest. He continues his advance until the gun is pressed over my heart.

“Why? Why you? Of everyone who could have killed my brother, why did it have to be you?”

I shake my head as tears start anew. I can’t look at Quinn. It hurts too much. I turn my head and stare at the far wall. My heartbeat thuds in my chest, trying to push the muzzle of the gun away. The beats offer me something to concentrate on, the rhythm calming my thoughts. Lightness takes over and I grow distant as my mind relaxes.

“He did this to you.”

A feather-like touch sweeps over my cheek and runs down my neck to my chest. The scraps of material that were my clothing still hang to the sides. I don’t answer. It’s clear that these aren’t self-inflicted. “He did this and I wasn’t here to stop him.”

I try to cover myself, but Quinn stops me. He runs the pad of his thumb over the marks. His touch hurtles me back into the present and makes me remember the sensation of the knife in my flesh. It’s what Josh did; he’s doing what Josh did. But instead of fascination, I read confusion in Quinn’s eyes. His eyes shimmer, the low light catching the moisture gathering in them. It breaks a part of my heart, shattering me into tiny pieces that I can’t fathom ever being able to piece together again.  

“Arghhh!” His thunderous roar fills the room, punctuated by rapid cracks of gunfire. The bangs make me jump in quick succession, waiting for pain to flare through me, for my body to give out, but it doesn’t.

I turn back to look at Quinn and see he’s emptied the chamber into the chair to the right of him. It fires my adrenaline and the urge to run scorches my limbs. I shouldn’t be here. I want to escape. I need to escape. My hands cradle my head as I hide away, too terrified to look at the scene in front of me.

An acrid smell permeates the room as smoke floats through the air and forces me to stay in the present. My eyes land on the door and what that signals, but I can’t look past Quinn. He heaves air into his lungs, his chest rising and falling in quick succession. I gasp, unable to breathe for relief. He didn’t kill me. But as I think the words, I understand that I thought he might. The man I’ve fallen for, the man I’ve missed and wished for could have killed me. He stood over me with a gun once before. But that was play. His games. This is real. It’s happening. How do I understand that? How can I?

“Quinn?” My whisper is so faint, but he turns to me. Confusion still mars his face.

He looks around the room and begins to pace around the body, his hands messing with his hair before he pauses and starts his pacing again. With each circuit he gets louder, his feet hitting the floor harder. The tension pulls all the oxygen from the room and I feel the pressure of his anger pushing me back into the corner.

He’ll never let me leave now. He has the gun; he has the power. He always held the power. I couldn’t ever say no to him. As soon as he touched me I was a puppet. He’s taken the old Emily and shaped her into someone who can pick up a gun and kill someone.

He’s a threat, front and centre, and instead of offering me help or support, all I see is another nightmare, one that I’ll never be able to wake up from. Thoughts turn in my mind until all I can see is fear. A life of fear. Surely, I’ll always need to watch for Quinn and what his revenge may be? I’ll never be free. How can I be? People pay with their life for murder. Will I pay Quinn with mine?

Tears soak my skin, falling and splashing onto my chest. My body trembles and shakes as I stumble along the side of the wall. My only way out is through Quinn, but I’m ready to collapse. I can feel the shake in my legs. My body needs to check out for a moment because I’m not sure that the grip on my sanity hasn’t been lost.

He lunges to me, pulling me against his chest as I slowly give in to my body and let my subconscious pull me under. As I do, though, I don’t miss the tenderness in Quinn’s hold as he pulls me into his chest and down onto the floor.