Page 74 of Forget Me Not
I picture Liam as a boy growing up in this place. All his remarks about being so lonely, so secluded out here on his own, as a new memory starts to emerge from a forgotten well in my mind: the two of us talking out in the vineyard, the moment I asked about the farthest he’d been and the way he had shrugged, spread his arms wide like he could fit his whole world in that one small space.
He hadn’t just meant the state, like I thought. He hadn’t meant South Carolina.
He had meanthere,right here on Galloway. He had meant the island itself.
I open my mouth, an attempt to talk, though my words aresuddenly stuck in my throat as I realize that while I was wrong about Marcia being trapped in this place, there really was someone stuck on the property.
Instead, it was Liam who was unable to leave.
“Come on,” Mitchell says, the steam from the mug floating like breath on my neck, although I try to ignore him as I keep looking at Liam.
“You were just a kid,” I press, the ceramic edge of the mug now kissing my lips. “You had no way of knowing what they would do to her—”
“That’s enough,” Mitchell snaps, and I pinch my lips tight, unable to keep talking without him tipping the whole thing back. “Twenty minutes, it’s over. It’ll be like falling asleep.”
I keep looking at Liam, silently pleading as the gun stays clutched in his right hand—although he doesn’t move, he doesn’t speak, and I suddenly know that it’s all over.
I know, at last, there’s no way to get through.
I close my eyes and think of my sister, wondering if this is how it went for her, too. In a lot of ways, it’s a fate far better than what I originally thought as I spent all those years picturing her trapped in that car, her arms desperately jerking the handle as ten fingers grabbed at the back of her hair.
This, in contrast, almost feels peaceful.
All she had to do was take a few sips, feel a slow warmth filling her up until her eyes closed for the very last time.
I inhale, the smell from the mug making my mind fuzzy and light, and all at once, the loneliness of my life starts to take hold. I think about quitting my job, my failed attempt at making it all on my own. My apartment I can barely afford, my parents with whom I rarely speak. Pushing away Ryan, my one true friend, all because he had been trying to help. He’s been so patient, ten whole years of attempting to crack through my impenetrable shell, but now thathe’s in, now that he’s seen all my scars, the rough, ugly tissue I’ve kept hidden beneath is surely enough to scare him away.
I open my eyes and stare down at the mug, the temptation to take the easy way out building with an irresistible strength. It’s the same thing I’ve always done, simply closing my eyes and sticking my head in the sand. Letting the darkness whisk me away… but then I think about Natalie again, her blood-soaked shirt they found in that car, and I know I still don’t have all the answers.
I know she must have fought until the bitter end.
I lean forward, closer to Mitchell, the warm clay pressed against my lips, our two faces inches apart. Then I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and grip the shears tight in my hand before swinging them straight into his neck.
CHAPTER 49
The scream that erupts sounds inhuman, practically animal. A high-pitched howl that cannot be natural, a sound created by unbearable pain. It’s followed up by a low gurgle, little wet bubbles erupting from the pit in Mitchell’s neck.
“Shoot her!” Lily yells, her voice morphing into a manic scream as she runs over to Mitchell now hunched on the floor, her body collapsing onto the ground next to his. “Liam,shoot her.”
I scramble to my feet, ready to run, but I’m still cornered in the back of the shed. I take a few steps forward, preparing to dart toward the door just as Liam’s silhouette moves between me and the opening. He’s blocking my exit, the gun clutched in his grip, and I look back down at Mitchell, Lily’s hands grasping the base of his neck as a red glint seeps through her fingers. Hot blood glowing in the light of the moon.
“Liam,”Lily yells as I keep backing up, my feet shuffling around as I try to find something to hide behind, some way to block the impending bullet. I can hear Mitchell’s chokes transforming togags, Lily muttering incomprehensible sounds as I keep the shears clutched in my hand, the handle now slick with blood from us both. Liam keeps walking toward me, just a few feet away, and I lift my arm higher, knowing it’s no match for a gun, but still prepared to start swinging if he gets too close—but then he kneels, his hands sweeping across Mitchell’s body. At first, it seems like he’s looking for a pulse, maybe attempting a tourniquet to stifle the blood, though Mitchell is still now, his wet wheezes softening into a rattle until, at last, it all goes quiet—and that’s when I realize Liam is looking for something else.
Not a pulse, not something to help, but the set of keys dangling from the loop of his jeans.
“Go,” Liam says, his voice bathed in agony as he stands up, Mitchell’s key ring clutched in his left hand. “Go right now.”
I stare at him, still not understanding until he turns toward Lily, positioning his body like a human shield as he points the gun in her direction, the barrel a few feet from touching her skin.
“Go,Claire.”
I look back and forth between them in a slow bewilderment until I finally blink back to my senses, sprinting past them both and bursting my way through the shed doors. The sky is lightening, the slow progression of dawn, and I whip around fast, ready to run back into the trees when I realize that Liam is backing up, too. His arm still raised directly at Lily as her body kneels a few feet away.
“Liam,” I say, suddenly understanding what he’s about to do. “Don’t.”
His shoulders tighten, an internal battle raging on. Anger and pain contorting his features as his finger starts to tighten around the trigger.
“Don’t let her take the easy way out.”
