Without forethought, I said, “It’s because I’m loved.” It was something Luca had told me long ago, that to him I would always be beautiful, even someday when all that others might see was a very old woman. I’d almost forgotten.
“What?” He looked at me sharply.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t cry,” he ordered. “I won’t hurt you unless you make me.”
Until that moment, I hadn’t even realized I was crying.
He went and lit the lamp. It made shadows dance on the walls. He put his hands on my shoulders and smiled close to my face. “You’re like a Christmas package waiting to be unwrapped…”
Christmas. I thought of last Christmas. Luca had given me a pearl drop necklace that had belonged to his mother. Then he’d gotten mad at me for telling Rennie there wasn’t any Santa Claus. Finally, we’d agreed that there really wasn’t any magic left in the world, though we could never agree just when the magic had gone out of it. Christmas.
His hands were on me now, and I gasped as he ripped the front of my dress open. I heard the buttons rolling across the floor as he pushed me onto the bed and got on top of me.
I lay perfectly still as he moved against me. Somehow, I must get through this. Just please God, don’t let Luca wake up. Not yet. Then suddenly there was another sound that drowned out Aaron’s groaning. It came muffled at first, strange, not human. Then closer, deep and throaty, not so unfamiliar now. Still, I couldn’t place it. Aaron shifted his weight off me so he could see where the sounds came from. My eyes followed his and what I saw amazed me. Sam hovered by the doorway. He was a hundred years old now, but it seemed he had not forgotten the chivalry of his youth. The fur on his back stood straight as porcupine needles, and his ears lay flat against his head. What teeth he had left were bared, and showed dirty yellow beneath his gums. With amazing speed for an animal his age, he crossed the room and the shout that escaped Aaron told me that he was being bitten.
I did not need to think now, for in fact thought was useless. Instinct drove me down the hall. Instinct told me what I must do. The shotgun was still where we had left it since our last hunting trip, hidden in one of the guest room closets. The bullets weren’t there and vaguely I remembered I had hidden them separately. I was conscious of the sound of Aaron being mauled in the other room, of the dog’s growling frenzy, of Aaron cursing, and finally of a sharp whimper that preceded the silence.
Where were the bullets? Clothes, hats, shoes rained down on me as I tore the closet apart. Damn Luca. He wouldn’t let me keep it loaded because of Rennie, and now…
I remembered suddenly. The drawers to Jewel’s old dresser were so heavy that they were hard to open. Eight drawers. They were not in the first. Aaron coming down the hall now. He had a heavy step for a man his size. I could hear him opening and closing doors. The bullets were not in the second drawer. Maybe Luca had moved them to another room entirely. Please, God, please. The dubious benefits of prayer. But please, God, anyhow.
“Darcy.” A singsong voice. “Wh-e-r-e a-r-e y-o-u?” A hide and seek voice, the voice of childhood.
Son of a bitch. My hand closed over the heavy metal box. Here it was. With trembling fingers, I loaded the gun. The moon gave the only light in the room, but nothing in me hesitated. Loading this gun in the dark, shaking with a fear as old as I was, was something I had done a hundred times before in my mind, anticipating.
When it was loaded, I got up and turned on the electric light so there would be no chance of missing him. All at once, he was illuminated in the doorway, the light momentarily blinding him. I backed up until I felt the support of the wall against my back.
“I’ve got a gun, Aaron. I’m going to kill you.”
He looked at me surprised. “Kill me?” he said, his voice filled with disbelief. “But we’re childhood sweethearts. Friends forever.”
“No,” I said, surprised at my own calm. “We were never friends. I had no father, no brothers, and you thought you could do whatever you wanted to me.” The disbelief in his eyes was giving way to fear. He was afraid, and his fear stirred something deep within me that made my fingers tingle with pleasure. “But I don’t need a father or brothers.” Stroking the barrel of the gun, I watched him back away. “I have this.” Confused, his eyes cast about for a way to leave, and in a gesture of abject surrender, he raised his palms to me, exposing them, and turned to walk away.
Time did strange things then. It stopped and it seemed like I had all the time in the world to make up my mind. If I was an animal and I wasn’t planning to eat him, I’d have let him go. Surrender would have been enough for an animal. It wasn’t enough for me. An animal cannot think about the future. He cannot fear it. If he is safe for the moment, it is enough. It wasn’t enough for me. I didn’t want Aaron Hamilton hurt. I didn’t want him imprisoned. I wanted him dead, so dead that he could never again touch my child’s hair, or make my husband feel less than a man. If he were to live, I would never stop being afraid. I would not show it, would deny it, but I would be afraid. And I could not stand myself afraid. No.
I had so many reasons, real justifiable reasons to kill him, reasons that you
