And he would.
It's her life or my own.
It's crueler than an order.
He's forcing me to choose.
Her death would be my fault, my choice, solely on my hands, and I'd have to live with it every day. It would be there in the morning when I awoke and still be there at night when I tried to sleep. I'm a murderer. I won't sugarcoat the label. I wear it with pride. But this?
This is suicide.
Karissa turns, startling when she spots me standing there. Gasping, she grasps her chest, dropping the spatula in surprise. She gapes at me, and I see the flicker of fear in her eyes, fear she tries to shove away as she put that smile back on her face. It's forced now, though. There's no more happiness.
"Naz?" she says. "Are you okay?"
"Why wouldn't I be, Karissa?"
"I, uh… I don't know." She reaches down and picks up the spatula again. "You look kind of, uh…"
"Kind of what?"
"Upset."
Upset.
That's putting it mildly.
Inside, I'm a fucking mess.
"I'm fine," I lie. Blatantly. She can tell I'm not fine. "How are you?"
"Fine." She eyes me warily. "Seriously, are you okay? Did something happen?"
Did something happen? Yeah, something happened. My gaze shifts to the envelope as I shake my head. "Do you trust me, Karissa?"
"Uh…" She hesitates, tossing the spatula in the sink. "I'm trying to. I trust you won't hurt me, if that's what you mean, but as far as really trusting you… I don't know. I guess I do. Why?"
"Just curious," I say, strolling into the kitchen. "And do you think I should trust you?"
"Of course."
"Because I started to," I say, "and that wasn't easy for me. It took a lot for me to give you my trust again."
"I know," she says, her voice quiet. "You can trust me."
"So there isn't anything you want to tell me?" I ask. "Nothing you want to get off your chest?"
Her brow furrows at my line of questioning. "No."
"Nothing at all?"
"No, nothing." Her expression is full of confusion. "What is this about, Naz?"
Wordlessly, I stare at her, before opening the envelope and reaching inside. Holding it up, I pull out the top photograph, just far enough for her to see what it is. She stares at it blankly for a moment before her eyes widen with recognition. Her gaze darts straight to me, panicked, that fear returning.
The knife in my chest is being twisted.
"Where did you get that?" she asks. "Who took it?"
"Kelvin. You remember Kelvin, right? The bouncer from the club? I suppose some of those times you felt like you were being watched, you actually were."
Her eyes widen even further. "You had me followed? You said you didn't. You lied to me!"
"I lied to you?" I ask incredulously, shaking the photograph in her face. "You told me I could trust you."
"You can," she says. "That's not what it looks like. I don't know what he told you, but it's not what it seems."
"It isn’t? Because it seems to me, Karissa, like you got caught talking to the police."
"I didn't get caught. It wasn't like that."
"It wasn't? Because I don't remember you telling me about it. I don't remember you coming to me."
"That's because you were hurt," she says, shaking her head as she turns the stove off, abandoning whatever she's cooking. "Jesus, Naz, you'd just been shot! You had enough to deal with. I was trying to be strong… for you, for me… for us. I was trying, okay? And every time I left the house, every time I went somewhere, those detectives were around. So I talked to them."
"You talked to them."
"Yes, when you were injured."
"When I was injured," I say. "You talked to them."
"Ugh, stop that!" she growls. "Stop repeating me. I went there because they wouldn't leave us alone. I went there because you were hurt, Naz, because you'd been shot, and I wanted to know what they were doing about it. So I asked, and then they asked me to help you, so I told them what I knew."
Anger, sometimes, is bitter cold.
It's harsher than red-hot rage.
There's the blue.
"You told them what you knew?"
"I told them who shot you."
I step toward her, tossing the envelope beside the stove as I go toe-to-toe with her, backing her up against the counter. "You don't know who shot me."
"Yes, I do," she says, her voice shaking. I can tell she's trying to hold it together. "I'm not an idiot. Just because you don't tell me things doesn't mean I can't figure them out on my own. I know who shot you."
"And you told them."