Mom!Andy shook the chair so hard that fresh blood oozed out of her side. The table bumped into her chest. She twisted her wrists, trying to hold up her hands so that Laura could see them.
Look!Andy groaned, straining her vocal cords, begging her mother for attention.
Laura took another blow from the gun. Her head rolled to the side. She was dazed from the beating.
Mom!Andy shook the table harder. Her wrists were raw. She waved her hands, furiously trying to get Laura’s attention.
“Come on, kid,” Paula said. “All you’re gonna do is knock yourself over.”
Andy grunted, shaking her hands in the air so hard that the cuffs cut into her skin.
Look!
With painful slowness, Laura’s eyes finally focused on Andy’s hands.
Four fingers raised on the left. One finger raised on the right.
The same number of fingers Laura had shown Jonah Helsinger at the diner.
It’s why you haven’t pulled the trigger yet. There’s only one bullet left.
While Laura watched, Andy raised the thumb of her left hand.
Six fingers.
Six bullets.
The gun was empty.
Laura sat up on the bed.
Paula was thrown by her sudden recovery from the beating, which was exactly what Laura needed.
She grabbed the gun with her right hand. Her left hand corkscrewed through the air, punching Paula square in the throat.
Everything stopped.
Neither woman moved.
Laura’s fist was pressed to the front of Paula’s neck.
Paula’s hand was wrapped around Laura’s arm.
A clock was ticking somewhere in the room.
Andy heard a gurgling sound.
Laura wrested away her injured hand.
A ribbon of red sagged into the collar of Paula’s shirt. Her throat had been sliced open, the skin gaping in a crescent-shaped wound.
Blood dripped from the razorblade Laura held between her fingers.
I will slice open your fucking throat if you hurt my daughter.
That was why Laura wasn’t wearing the splint. She needed her fingers free so that she could hold onto the blade and punch it into Paula’s neck.
Paula coughed a spray of blood. She was shaking—not from fear this time, but from white hot fury.
Laura leaned in. She whispered something into Paula’s ear.
Rage flickered like a candle in her eyes. Paula coughed again. Her lips trembled. Her fingers. Her eyelids.
Andy pressed her forehead down to the table.
She found herself feeling detached from the carnage. She wasn’t shocked by sudden violence anymore. She finally understood the serenity on her mother’s face when she had killed Jonah Helsinger.
She had seen it all before.