Chapter Fifty Two
Aaron’s phone was dead but that didn’t matter. He knew where he had to be. He was flying down the road toward Fresno State campus, which was on the other side of town, a fifteen minute drive. He wondered why I said Paul was in Sedona when he wasn’t. Police got him cornered, I had told him. How could I be so wrong about something so huge? I don’t blame Aaron for being pissed at me because I’d be upset as well. I never considered that from the onset Maurice Esperanza was a ploy to misdirect me or to extract information from me or to lure me into Sedona. It would then make sense why he wanted me to drive out there instead of sending for a chopper. The police had nothing to do with Doug or Paul. But what purpose did it serve in getting me to go out there? Could it be as simple as putting greater distance between me and Fresno? If so, what could be the purpose of that?
How fitting that he should have Brooke at the dry riverbed. It seemed like fate that it should end there. And it would end there, Aaron told himself. Somehow it would. He hadn’t the first idea what he was going to do when he confronted Paul. All the cards would be in Paul’s hand, as they always were, had never stopped being.
He parked at the end of the cul-de-sac and paused to think. He took rapid inventory of items in his truck. Was there anything that could help him overpower Paul? He remembered what I had told him about Edward lying on a tire-iron. A tire-iron could dish out a wicked blow. It was the closest thing to a weapon he had. He snatched a flashlight from the glove box and stuffed it in his pocket. Under the back seat of the Extra Cab was a storage compartment where there was a jack and a tire-iron. He took the latter and hustled down the invisible path.
“God, please keep Brooke and me safe,” he said as he went.
As dark as it was, it could have been worse. The moon was a couple days away from being full, shone blue-white well enough that he wouldn’t be tripping over a damn bush or rock. There were pockets of fog, though far and few between. He descended into the riverbed remembering what befell him last time he made this trip: fishing line tied between rocks. He didn’t think Paul would use the same implements this second go-around, but just to be sure he’d keep an eye out for such a trap. The tire-iron in his right hand was slippery from his sweaty palm. He wiped his hand on his pants and retook it, gave a practice swing as he ran. He resolved to use it to kill Paul if that should be necessary. He’d hit him in the head at a full swing, and wouldn’t lose a second of sleep over it. He pretended he secretly didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to bust Paul’s head open like a ripe cantaloupe.
Aaron remembered what he had once told Brooke, back when she was eight and the cutest kid ever: “You’re going to be all right from now on. I promise. Paul won’t bother you ever again. You have my word.” That stung right now. It was a broken promise, not that Brooke would remember that vow or blame anyone other than Paul, but still. It meant a hell of a lot to Aaron, that he broke a promise to Tinkerbelle.
He swiped his wet brow with his left forearm, hurdled over a low bush, nearly twisted his ankle on the uneven landing, and reached the bottom of the riverbed. He ran at a full sprint. A strong gust of cold wind blew in his face. In the distance, just beyond the bridge, was a bank of fog.
He remembered Paul smugly saying, “Where’s your God now?” to which Aaron responded, “Everywhere. He’s in the air we breathe, the words we speak.” God would need to grant him a miracle if he was to come out of this alive—or Brooke come out of this alive. The situation seemed too prodigious to not be well planned by Paul. He’d surely have thought out every possibility, crossed all his T’s and dotted his I’s. Aaron on the other hand was flying blindly, relying solely on the air we breathe, the words we speak, to overcome his enemy.
The thick concrete bridge spanning the riverbed was glowing bone-white under the moon. Under it was pitch black shadows. Aaron peered at the spot that he knew Paul and Brooke to be as he worked on closing the gap. His heavy breaths and footfalls precluded him from hearing anything else. But if Brooke was being harmed she’d scream and he’d hear it. It heartened him to know that she wasn’t.
As if Aaron had tempted fate by thinking it, Brooke shrieked.
“Get off of me!” she shouted, then shrieked again.
Aaron gripped the tire-iron more tightly, ran somehow faster, fishing-line be damned. If he tripped this time, he’d be back up on the same breath. Nothing on earth would stop him now.
He was now breasting the embankment, twenty feet from the spot under the bridge where he took Marie, the spot where Tinkerbelle had been brained by a rock, the spot where this was going to end, tonight. He still couldn’t see them.
“Stop hurting her, asshole!” Aaron shouted, his gaze now on the rough terrain before him, avoiding rocks as he got closer to the bridge.
He arrived at the crest, slowed to a walk as he neared the deep shadows under the bridge, stopped with the top of his head just inches before and under the concrete. He switched to a two-handed grip of the weapon. He could see just enough to know that he was alone here.
“Where are you?”
Aaron steadied his breathing, scanned the area. What kind of game was he playing?
There were footsteps now on the other side of the bridge. Paul walked down the slope from the road, the moonlight showing his feet, then legs, and finally the whole of him. They faced each other on either side of the bridge, inscrutable blackness between them.
“Where is she?” Aaron asked.
“She’s not here.”
“Bullshit, I heard her screaming.”
“Are you sure you heard her?” Paul grinned. “You know very little for someone who knows everything.”
“Of course I heard her,” Aaron said crossly, “now tell me where she is!”
“I told you, she’s not here.”
Just then Brooke shrieked, startling Aaron. It originated… where did it originate? He turned a full circle in search of the girl. Paul chuckled. Brooke shrieked again, only this time it came from somewhere else, behind Aaron. Then again, this time issuing from down the riverbed under the bridge. The impossibility of it was maddening.
“Still think she’s here?” Paul said with that damned slanted grin.
“How are you doing that?”
“It’s all in your head, dude. She ain’t here.”
“Where is she?”
In Aaron’s ear Brooke whispered enticingly, “I’m right here, sweetheart. Come take me under the bridge like you did Marie.”
Aaron flinched and spun around. Paul laughed hysterically.
As terrifying as it was, this supernatural phenomenon, Aaron appreciated that Brooke wasn’t here. She was safe after all. If this was a trick to lure Aaron here, then so be it. At least it would be between he and Paul only. But then…
“The picture you texted, that’s not real either?” Aaron said hopefully.
“Oh that’s real, all right. You better believe it.”
Paul stepped forward into the shadows of the bridge, instantly becoming a silhouette. Aaron gasped. The silhouette possessed two fire-reflecting eyes. Fire, churning and dancing and flickering, undulating as Paul walked under the bridge toward Aaron. Aaron took a couple steps back, wound back his steel rod, then another step back.
“I’ve been dreaming about this day for a long time,” the silhouette said.
“What are you,” Aaron stammered, took another step back.
“What do you mean what am I?”
Paul entered the moonlight on Aaron’s side of the bridge. The fiery eyes returned to normal. He stopped a couple feet short of Aaron.
“You’re like that demon.”
“Am I?” Paul registered intrigued. “How do you mean?”
“Your eyes, they were… like his.”
“Any guess as to why I brought you out here?”
“For Brooke. To keep her safe from you.”
“That would be why you came, not why I arranged for you to come.”
“I don’t know why, and I
don’t care. I just want this to be over.”
“You’ll get your wish. It’s over tonight.”
Aaron nodded. “Tell me where she is.”
“I will. You probably think I’m the biggest piece of shit on the planet, and to your kind of people I am. But you can’t deny that I’ve been honest with you all along. I haven’t lied to you, have I?”
Aaron gave it some thought before agreeing with him.
“I’ve lied to others, about being a student, about my job, but there were reasons for those lies. I had things to gain. I have nothing to gain from lying to you, never have. That’s why you can take to the bank all of which I say.”
“I do believe you.”
“Good. You better believe what I’m about to say, because it’s the goddam truth. Brooke means little to me. I liken her to a piece of candy. I’d like to have a taste, but it’s such a fleeting pleasure. I’d get bored of her soon enough.”
“Is there no humanity in you whatsoever?”
“She’s beautiful, Aaron.”
Aaron felt a kind of gravity in this dialogue never before felt between them. Paul wasn’t being smug or arrogant or condescending or ambiguous, but was genuine and grounded, forthcoming. It hinted at something that Aaron couldn’t quite grasp.
“She’s beautiful but so are millions of other chicks,” Paul said. “Yeah I’d like to enjoy her, but then she’d be devalued by you. It’s like driving a new car off the lot, it loses a ton of value immediately. You want her as a virgin and I can understand that. Can sympathize, even. I haven’t touched her in that way, I give you my word. And as you just admitted, I’m no liar.”
“I do appreciate that, Paul. Honestly I do.” He couldn’t believe he was about to say thanks, but he did. “Thanks for not touching her. You’re wrong, though. Have always been wrong in assuming I want her in that way.”
“I’m never wrong. Let’s agree to disagree. But will you admit that I’m right about you valuing her dearly? A value without equal?”
Aaron thought he valued his girlfriend just as much, if not more. But the truth was, Tinkerbelle was special in a different kind of way, and wasn’t sure why. Yes was the truthful answer to Paul’s question. “Yes.”
“Good. I’m glad we got the opportunity to talk again. There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you. What was it like, dying and coming back to life?”
“I don’t know. How was it that the bodies of the twenty-three disappeared? Norrah saw them, you know. She saw their bodies strewn across the basement.”
“Magic. Haven’t you ever watched a magician make something disappear? The shit doesn’t really disappear, you just can’t see it. Trickery. I suspect they never left, just became impossible to see, to feel.” He considered Norrah and amended, “Well, nearly impossible to see.”
“Who’s your friend, Paul? He isn’t a man, I know that. A magician, sure. Magic is deception. Your friend, is he the great deceiver? Is he Satan?”
“When I was a boy I collected baseball cards. My neighbor Georgie did as well. We used to make trades. I had an autographed Hank Aaron, not his rookie card but second year. It was worth five-hundred bucks at the time. Georgie wanted that card something fierce. I had refused trade countless times. I loved that Hank card. So one day I had him come over, told him to bring all his cards. Inside my bedroom on the upper-left corner of the desktop that I had cleared beforehand was my Hank Aaron in a protective sleeve. Georgie entered my room and gaped at the card, set his folders down and stepped to the desk, ogled the Hank Aaron. I told him the card was on the table this one time only. He was to put his own cards on the table, to cover every square inch of the desktop with his cards, save for the couple inches my Hank occupied. If I was satisfied with the cards he put down, the trade would be made. If I wasn’t, there would be no trade, no second chances, the deal would be dead forever. He had one chance to win my approval. He tried to get me to pick out the cards I wanted but I wouldn’t. It was all on him. So he flipped through the pages of his folders, selected nothing but great cards, cards of high and medium value, and lined them across the table one after the other. When he was done there were fifteen cards across and seven rows down. The trade was made. Georgie nearly cried he was so happy. After he left I checked the prices of the cards in a Beckett price-guide. He gave me nine-hundred-and-fifty dollars worth of cards for that five-hundred dollar Hank Aaron. I doubt Georgie had any idea what a horrible deal he made. Maybe he wouldn’t have cared because he got the card he wanted so badly. I suppose a good deal is relative, in the eye of the beholder.”
“Why are you telling me this? Are you saying that Brooke is your Hank Aaron now?”
Paul smiled, nodded. “That’s exactly right. She’s on the table. You go through your folders and pick out a good trade. If it’s good I’ll take it. If it’s not, the deal is forever off the table. And the reason why it’ll forever be off the table is because the Hank Aaron will be destroyed, if you catch my drift.”
“You’d kill her?” Aaron said incredulously. “You’d honestly kill a sweet innocent little girl? For no reason at all?”
“One has to make good on his promises. If I didn’t follow through with a promise, what good would my word be? Yes, she’ll die, but it won’t be me who kills her.”
“Your friend,” Aaron said mockingly. “I know you killed the Demitri and Feller girls. How chicken-shit, to have the blame pinned on Edward.”
“Let’s not get off subject,” Paul said. “Let’s get to trading, eh? You know the card I have on the table, let’s see what you got. Remember, you have only one chance at a trade. If you dissatisfy me, it’s over.”
“How do I know you even have her? Where is she?”
“You saw the picture I texted you.”
“How do I know that isn’t magic like hearing her voice was a minute ago?”
“Because I’m giving you my word. And although that should be good enough, I had a feeling you’d want more concrete proof. So I brought some.”
“In the picture she was here at the riverbed.”
“Yeah. It got you here, didn’t it?”
He withdrew his cellphone from pocket and sidled up to Aaron, held it between them and tapped Photos. Aaron’s blood boiled instantly at what he was seeing. Tinkerbelle was wearing black cotton pants and a blue turtleneck sweater, sitting on dirty concrete with her hands behind her back, looking up at the camera with confusion in her eyes. The next photo had her sweater off, a peach bra, and the confusion in her eyes had been replaced with fear and tears. The next photo had her pants off. Matching peach panties. She was lying face down on the concrete, her hands together at her lower back, as if they were subdued, but weren’t. Even the angle at which her wrists touched one another was indicative of being banded together. Magic trick, Aaron thought. The next photo outraged him to such a degree that he yearned to kill Paul right then and there. It resurfaced old memories, of panty-girl, the wedgie. The photographer (Paul) used one hand to snap the photo and the other hand to pull the back of her panties up in a wedgie. Tinkerbelle’s butt was a little blue and had goosebumps from the cold night. Beside her, flush with the paved concrete surface, was a man-hole with two little holes to lift the iron plate and access God-knows-what. It was silver and dirty, but Aaron could read the engraving on the plate: Vintage. As in Vintage Oil, an oil company owned by Occidental, a huge oil company. The photos were taken at an oil lease. And the bridge above them led to an oil lease, one once owned by Vintage.
“Not a bad ass, huh?” Paul said and went to the next picture.
She was on her back now, hands pinned at the small of her back, a leg coiled back as if she were trying to kick Paul. Tinkerbelle was without a bra in this picture, her small breasts bare. Something snapped in Aaron, he saw red. He took the tire-iron in both hands and wound it back to swing at Paul’s head, to send him to hell where he belonged. Paul didn’t even flinch. He stood there gazing down contentedly at the phone, which was angled between them to afford Aaron a
good view of the photos.
As Aaron exploded into a fatal swing at Paul’s head, Paul swiped the screen to the next photo while muttering, “That’s a little heavy, isn’t it?”
Upon those words the tire-iron fell straight to the ground as if it weighed a thousand pounds instead of a few. Aaron barely let go of it before it crushed his hands under its incredible weight.
“This one here is the last picture I took,” Paul said calmly, as if his head hadn’t almost become concave from a mortal blow.
“You’re the devil,” Aaron said, gawking at Paul.
Paul gestured Aaron to look at the picture. Aaron only glimpsed it at first, avoiding looking at a nude Brooke. But she wasn’t nude. He looked more carefully at the picture. She was on her back still, her leg that had been trying to kick Paul was now in his hand at the ankle, snagged. What perplexed Aaron was that her bra was on. Why had he taken it off in the last picture but put it back on for this one?
Aaron snatched the phone from the bastard’s hands and swiped the screen back to the previous picture.
“If you’d like I can forward the one of her wedgied ass to you,” Paul said and humored.
The previous picture befuddled Aaron. It was the same picture, Brooke on her back with her leg out to attempt a kick at Paul, but her bra was on.
“Did you take her bra off?” Aaron asked him.
“No. Should I have?” He humored again.
“But I just saw it. Her bare chest. Now it’s gone.” He met eyes with Paul, who took back his phone, put it in his pocket. “You are Satan. Aren’t you?”
“Are you that stupid? Huh? No I’m not Satan. Never met him, but I hear he’s a great guy.” Paul smirked: Aaron wanted to strangle him.
“You’re going to burn in hell for an eternity,” Aaron said through clenched teeth.
“Actually,” Paul said, “ it’s not me who’s going to burn in hell for an eternity. That leads me back to our trade. I think we both know what a good trade for Brooke is, I just want to hear you say it.”
Aaron hadn’t the foggiest idea. In his hesitation Paul cleared his throat, spit. “What…? My soul? Is that it? You’re telling me you aren’t the devil yet you want me to sell my soul to you?”
“Woah, I never said anything about selling your soul. You watch too many movies, bro.”
“Then what? What do I have to offer?”
“What’s a fair trade for one life? Come on, man, think.”
“Another life.”
Paul said nothing, but in his expression was the answer. Yes, another life.
“You want to kill… you want me to…” Aaron said and cut short.
Paul waited for Aaron to arrive at it on his own. He said, “Remember, you have only one chance at this. You better make it count, or she’s not going to come out of this.”
“You want to kill me.” Quickly he retracted, “No! That’s not an offer!”
“Luckily for Brooke, you’re right. That’s not a trade I’d make.”
“I’m just thinking aloud,” Aaron said. Understanding washed over him at once. He closed his eyes at the thought. That’s why Paul said he wasn’t going to be the one spending an eternity in hell. He thought it should be Aaron who owned that fate. “I know what you want.”
“My card’s on the table. Are you ready to put yours down?”
“But I can’t do that,” Aaron said in almost a whisper. “You know I can’t.”
“I’m waiting.”
Aaron exhaled deeply, paced away from Paul, stood looking down into the dry riverbed. “I don’t know.”
“Then this concludes our negotiations.” He took his first step away from Aaron.
“I could just follow you to her.”
“No, Aaron, you couldn’t.”
Aaron turned around to face Paul. “And why couldn’t I?”
“Because like the tire-iron, your legs are too heavy to do much traveling.”
Aaron looked down at his legs, tried to take a step forward but had little success. It scooted along the dirt only a couple inches before stopping. He looked up at Paul bewildered. “You can’t tell me you aren’t the devil.”
“I can and I have and I’m not. If you don’t make me an offer right now, I’m heading out to have a little fun with Brooke. You’ll next see her on the news.”
“I know where she’s at. The oil lease. Vintage.” Aaron pointed in the general direction.
“I know you know. I took the pictures, didn’t I? I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
Paul had a point there. Aaron was rooted to this spot, it wasn’t like he could run to the old Vintage lease and rescue Brooke.
“Okay,” Paul said and sighed dramatically. “So be it.”
“No! Wait!”
Paul stared apathetically at Aaron.
“It’s a deal,” Aaron said. “I’ll do it. But only if you give me your word you’ll not harm Brooke now or ever, and leave her life once and for all, never to return. Swear it.”
Paul put a hand over his heart. “I swear it. She’ll never see me again. I’ll set her free and it will be over. Now I need to hear you say it, to be sure we’re on the same page here.”
Looking down solemnly at the ground, Aaron said, “I’ll take my life.”
“Theeeeere we go. Funny thing about suicide,” Paul said thoughtfully, “it’s been said that those who kill themselves won’t enter Paradise. Is that true?”
“Only God knows if that’s true.”
“If you had to guess, would you think that’s the case?”
Aaron met eyes with the bastard. “I’ve preached that very topic. Catholics believe it is a mortal sin. Many Christians do as well, but not all of them. By preaching that it’s an unforgivable sin, it prevents a lot of people from killing themselves who otherwise would; it serves a purpose.”
“Haven’t I always said that religious people are liars and hypocrites?”
“I’m not lying. I just don’t know. It doesn’t specify in the bible. Suicide is killing, one of the ten commandments. Yes I do believe it to be the case, that most of those who kill themselves shall not enter Paradise. Most of those shall not enter Paradise. But this is an extraordinary circumstance. I believe God would forgive me.”
“You’ll soon find out, huh?” Paul stooped down, hiked up a pant leg and between boot and ankle withdrew a miniature handgun, a Glock. “You’d think I was a boy scout, huh?” He chuckled. “Here you go, she’s all yours.”
He held the gun out. Aaron doubted he’d be able to take the couple steps to grab the gun, but his legs were working just fine now. He took the gun from Paul’s hand.
Aaron contemplated using it against him. Just blow that son of a bitch’s head off. But could he? If it were possible, Paul wouldn’t have just handed him the gun so readily. The guy had put a lot of forethought into everything he’s done. He wouldn’t have overlooked such an obvious thing. Folly doesn’t become Paul, precision does. All that Paul would need to do is comment on how heavy the gun is or something equally silly-sounding and it would fall to the ground like a ton of bricks. Or heck, maybe he’d just have to think it and the gun would dissolve into thin air, or turn into a snake, or who the hell knows? Black magic. Maybe Paul knew it, but it seemed more likely that it was his friend who specialized in it.
“If you so much as aim it at me,” Paul warned, “the deal’s off. Brooke dies.”
Aaron nodded. Tears welled in his eyes. Was he really about to do this? Was there no alternative? There wasn’t. Either he dies or Brooke dies, the choice had to be made. And if he chose in favor of self-preservation he’d endure insufferable guilt. Guilt that would never fade away, never lessen, only ripen. How long could he suffer through that before entertaining ideas of suicide? Brooke represented everything wholesome and pure in the world. God’s most precious creation. A beauty so great that its only rival was the beauty inside her. Such a special girl; he appreciated what a gift she was the day he first met her.
&n
bsp; He recalled the first time he laid eyes on her, his first day as a Sunday school teacher. She was six years old, maybe seven, and biting down on the side of her lip in her concentration, gripped either side of her plastic chair and trod air under it feverishly, as if she was competing in the seated four-forty dash. Then, abruptly, she kicked her legs straight out, rigidly, and held them there as she made a strained face, carved dimples in her pink little cheeks, a shock of unmanageable buttermilk hair in disarray. She was having a grand old time with herself.
There was the time she switched her left and right shoes and left the classroom like that, walking awkwardly and giggling, tapping other kids’ shoulders and pointing down at her feet proudly. Then there was the time she sneezed emphatically during a lecture and a tooth rocketed out of her mouth and snagged into one of Beth’s curls. Tinkerbelle was agape, covered her mouth with both hands. She apologized to Beth and began digging in her nest of hair to find the tooth that would bring her two dollars under her pillow that night. Two dollars that would be spent wisely at the convenience store on any candy that was purple, as purple was her favorite flavor of anything. And how adorable she was when she had to pee. She’d raise her hand high up, brace that raised arm with her other arm, which rested over the crown of her head (as a raised arm tends to get mightily heavy after about two seconds), and she’d squirm in her chair making the silliest face. Aaron would tell her that her blues eyes had become green when she had to pee, and explained how blue plus yellow make green. Like most kids her age she was still ironing out the details of pronouncing her R’s. “Mista Mendelssoooooohn, I weally gotta peeeeeee. I’m sowwy, but it’s stawting to sting.”
These were but a few of the memories he’d reflect upon with a broken unmendable heart. Every time he remembered Brooke he’d weep and wish it were his own life he took back then and not hers. To spare his life would result in losing the will to live. But saving Brooke, there could be no regrets on anyone’s behalf with such a righteous decision. And Brooke would forever love him for it, procure a special place in her heart just for Aaron—assuming she’d find out what he did. He’d become a hero to her. Maybe she’d name her first son Aaron. Jesus preached humility and modesty, but it is such a sin to want to be looked-up to by such a special kid?
It really wasn’t much of a decision to make at all. He’d gladly take his own life if it meant saving Tinkerbelle.
He slowly got down on his knees, sat on his heels with the gun resting on a thigh. He bowed his head and said, “Lord, please forgive me for what I’m about to do.” A tear ran down his cheek. “Know that I’m only doing this for Tinkerbelle. If there was any other way, I’d do it. Please don’t condemn me to spend eternity in hell.”
“It’s going to be pretty hot down there,” Paul said and snickered. “I doubt there’s air conditioning in hell.”
“If you wish for me not to kill myself,” Aaron said and looked up at the black sky, “tell me so and I won’t.”
“Don’t kill yourself,” Paul mumbled through the side of his mouth and erupted in laughter.
Aaron wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, lifted the gun (which weighed ounces but felt like pounds) off his thigh and gazed blankly at it. “Forgive my sins, which are many,” Aaron said, and sobbed. “I’m sorry for being a weak Christian. So many things I could have and should have done, but didn’t, as I’m selfish. Forgive me for taking Marie Elbrick here all those years ago.” He sobbed. Tears dripped off his jaw. “Watch over Tinkerbelle for me. Give her the wonderful life that I’m taking from myself.”
Paul had ceased humoring, composed himself, watched Aaron attentively. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said. “Be strong.”
Looking up at the sky, Aaron said, “Please accept me into your kingdom. I love you, Lord. Amen.”
His tears were so great that he almost missed the girl standing behind and to the side of Paul, who was no more than a watery smudge, her dress glowing white. If Paul was aware of her, he didn’t let it be known. Aaron wiped his eyes, sharpened his gaze on Magdalena. Paul traced Aaron’s gaze with a knitted brow.
Sitting on his heels, Aaron put the gun to his right temple, fixed on the angel.
“What are you looking at?” Paul finally asked.
“Can’t you see her?” Aaron asked quietly. He didn’t wait for a response, didn’t really care if Paul or his friend could see her. The time had come to focus on the future, on the next world.
I’m scared, Maggie, Aaron thought. I’m a coward. Tell me not to do this and I won’t. Please tell me not to do this and I won’t. I’m just so scared. A sob. Is this the only way?
Her gloomy little face nodded once.
Aaron closed his eyes, displacing pools of tears. He cocked back the gun’s hammer. It made an ominous click.
“Take care, bud,” Paul said. “Thanks for playing. Give my regards to Lucifer.”
Aaron opened his eyes, set his final gaze on Maggie. As he began pulling the trigger he saw something through his peripherals, a bright white indeterminable flash. He hadn’t time to consider it, or he might have wondered if it was God coming to deliver him from his earthen body.
Magdalena’s somber gaze remained on Aaron as the trigger was pulled. A loud report echoed for seconds after Aaron’s lifeless body fell forward, blood trickling onto the dirt fourteen years after Marie’s.