What Lasts in Us

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

The images were on repeat inside my head, behind my eyelids. The gunshot, the bullet hitting him between the eyes, the blood and brain splattering the wall behind him. And her. She was resigned but stoic. I could see the question in her eyes when she turned around, when she heard me approach.

She almost looked guilty, like a naughty child caught in the act. I could see the anguish in her gaze, whether she wanted me to or not. I knew she had a heart, whether she believed it or not. She was just too far from how she used to be, who she believed she was when she deemed herself 'human'.

I understood why she shot him, but that didn't make it any less confronting.

I could hear glass crunching and magazines crinkling as Charli rushed to catch me; her hand curled around my arm and pulled me back. I allowed her to; otherwise I could easily break free and keep going.

"What the hell?" she demanded.

She was angry at me. She was the one who pulled the trigger.

She glared at me, and it was hard to get a good reading on her. I could tell she was angry, but it took me a moment to recognise the look of hurt that warped her expression.

"You said you understood - now you just turn away when you see it with your own eyes?" she said. "What – you can understand it in theory but you can't when it actually happens?" She released my arm and took a step back. "You are such a hypocrite–"

"Get fucked," I snapped, and I was actually successful at shutting her up. "Did you ever consider that maybe I didn't want to stay in a room where someone's brains were splattered on the wall? Did you think that maybe that boy reminded me of Robbie?"

I didn't want to admit it, but I'd started having nightmares about Robbie. Well, the ways I could kill him, anyway. He always died at my hand, but almost every night it was executed differently. They started maybe a week ago, basically when we hit the road in our quest to get Emmi back.

In all honesty, maybe it had something to do with how little I'd thought of Robbie since I put him out of his misery, and the guilt that followed. But could I be excused because all I could think and worry about was Emmi and getting her back?

I hadn't given myself much time to grieve, and maybe this was it. Maybe in this gas station, with an angry Charli standing in front of me, maybe now was the time to grieve for my friend. Unconsciously I'd bottled it up and stowed it away; maybe the death of this boy was the trigger to opening the bottle and demanding I grieved my friend.

But life as it was now, had different ideas.

I'd rendered Charli momentarily speechless, but of course good things always had to end. Just as she opened her mouth to say something – to yell or argue – I heard voices. Nearby. It took only half a second to step forward and put a hand against her mouth; it took a full second for her to realise that something was wrong; it took a minute and a half for the voices to grow louder, loud enough for Charli to hear.

Hand still covering her mouth, I grabbed her arm, pulled her back into the gas station, and pulled her down behind a shelf that contained nothing but rubbish, rat faeces, and the remains of what used to sit on the shelf.

The shadows would play to our advantage – but having Dog in my possession, not so much. He gave a squeak before giving a giant yawn. Now it would be alright for him to make some noises, but once these people got closer, he would only alert them – maybe not enough to suspect that people would be hiding here, but it would warrant them to search the area.

I kept my hand over Charli's mouth and my arm around her, so she was wedged against my side; it reminded me of the day we'd met, when we'd been hiding behind a car on the highway, a group of guys wanting to check out the area because they'd heard gunshots.