Maybe I really am crazy? I wonder a second before Audra turns away from Lloyd, Clarice's knife in her hand, and swings it at something I can't see. Lloyd fires again and again and again and again. Until the clip in his semi-automatic is empty and Clarice's body is shaken, writhing and reacting to each blast that breaks through her tanned skin. This is my fault. My fault.
I rip the knife from Lloyd's flesh and plunge it in a second time. His screams don't even reach my ears. I'm in another time and place, and my mind is spinning away from the situation that's now so far out of my control that I can't process it anymore.
“Lucas!”
I can't hear Audra because all I can hear is Aliyah. And Isadora. And all of the other women in my life I've tried to save and failed and abused without even knowing that I was doing it. In trying to unchain the taboo from around the throats of others, all I've done is cinched my own noose.
“Lucas!”
Everything snaps into clear focus as Lloyd slides from my arms and hits the dirt next to Clarice's body. She's dead. Mrs. Braxton is dead. I only feel two things – relief and regret – as I turn and find the mess I've gotten myself in. In trying so hard to be Lucas, fighting against the Luke I really wish I could be; I've become a useless mess of in-between.
A mess of people hover just outside the reach of Audra's knife, watching silently as an everyday occurrence of violence takes place directly in front of them. Like vultures, they hover outside the realm of blood and gore, but close enough that they could slip in and take advantage of the situation at any moment.
“We have to go,” I whisper to Audra, knowing that Clarice's expensive purse, rings, and necklace will keep these people locked in place. If anyone chases after us, well, I'll let the demon have them. I grab the redhead around her arm and jerk her back towards the hole in the fence. As I pass by I glance down at Lloyd and Clarice's bodies. Both are still. While Mrs. Braxton lies on her back, blue eyes open and facing the sky with a blank emptiness that both chills and terrifies me, Lloyd lies facedown.
Their blood mixes on the dirty ground as we step around and past them, through the fence, and disappear into the growing crowd around the strip club.
I pause by Audra's car and makes sure she climbs in before I start to turn away. I don't speak. What is there to say?
“Lucas?”
I pause.
“Yes?”
Audra clears her throat and rubs her hands down her face.
“Are we going to prison for this?”
I take a deep breath, but I don't know how to answer her. Maybe? I don't know?
“Lloyd will be blamed for Clarice's death and nobody will give a shit who killed him. Perhaps they'll give Clarice the credit? She did have a knife after all? Anyway, there are plenty of people around here who might've been involved. We'll be okay.” I pause. “I mean, I think we'll be okay.”
Audra nods and tries to smile at me when I glance over my shoulder. Her expression looks as hollow as I feel.
“That didn't exactly go as planned, did it?” she asks me as I shake my head and listen to the far off cry of sirens. I wonder who called them or if they're even on their way here? “I'm sorry. I should've warned you.”
“It doesn't matter,” I tell her, even though it does. “It's over now.”
“I called him and told him you were my fiancée, that you needed closure. He obviously bought that shit, came here to, I don't know, finish you off or something. I just assumed … ”
“That I had things under control, right?”
“Something like that.”
“Call me next week, Audra Holiday,” I say as I move away and head back to my car with a migraine building behind my eyes. What a disaster. What a fucking nightmare. Clarice's death negates any excitement I might've had at killing Lloyd.
I pause next to my car and spread my hands, my eyes barely registering the wash of red over my fingers.
I hated Clarice. I thought I wanted her dead. I didn't.
This is the first and only time, as far as I'm aware, that my actions have directly or indirectly caused the death of someone I hadn't planned on killing. No, Clarice was not a good person. Some might even say that she deserved her fate, that killing her sister had sealed her demise. I don't know how to feel about any of it.
I draw my phone out of my pocket and stare at the missed calls. Several from Robbie. Too many.
I sigh and throw the phone onto the passenger seat of my car. Blood splatters the door, but I can't find it in myself to care.
I fall behind the wheel and slam the door before speeding off and disappearing before the cops can show up. I barely even register the drive home. What I do register, however, is Robbie Carrell sitting on the steps of my porch.