Chapter 32

“SHOOT ME FIRST”

I t all happened in slow motion to Cari. She felt as if she were outside her own body, watching the scene in the kitchen from just above it.

She was just an observer, watching herself and her friends give up on the bolt that barred the door and turn back to face Simon. Watching Rose press against the wall, her hands to her cheeks, her face revealing her shock and horror.

Once Simon was certain that the four teenagers weren’t about to escape, he looked down at Martin, who lay crumpled at his feet, his eyes wide open.

“That was some story you were telling them, Martin,” he said, breathing heavily, noisily, the hunting rifle gripped tightly at his side. “Some interesting story.”

He shifted his attention to Cari and her companions. “Too bad none of it was true,” he said heatedly.

He raked his hand through his wildly disheveled hair. Then his attention flitted back once again to the unconscious servant. “You shouldn’t tell lies, Martin. You shouldn’t tell lies during a hunting party.”

“Open the door, Edward,” Rose called from her spot against the back wall. “Open the kitchen door and let everyone out.”

“Why did you tell lies?” Simon asked Martin, ignoring Rose, giving no sign that he had even heard her.

He prodded Martin’s side lightly with the toe of his boot. “Why did you tell such lies about me, Martin? I thought you were my friend.”

He gave Martin a hard kick, then forgetting him, moved quickly to the four teenagers grouped around the Kitchen door.

Cari quickly came down to earth, no longer an observer. She felt heavy now, heavy with dread, uncertain whether she could move from her spot.

“Martin has made it so easy for me,” Simon said in Edward’s gruff voice, a grim smile crossing his red face.

Cari stared at the hunting rifle.

“So very easy for me,” he repeated, the smile broadening.

Cari stared at the rifle as it moved up to Simon’s shoulder.

The rifle.

The rifle that he had fired at them in the woods.

And in the hotel lobby.

“My own private shooting gallery,” Simon said, very pleased.

The rifle was poised on his shoulder now.

Cari couldn’t take her eyes off it.

“No—don’t shoot them! Simon—Edward—don’t shoot them!”

She heard Rose’s terrified screams, but they seemed far away now, somewhere off in the distance.

Cari stared at the rifle until her eyes blurred.

“No—please—I beg of you! Don’t shoot them!” Rose shrieked.

Simon aimed the rifle at Eric, then moved it to Craig, then back to Eric.

Staring at the barrel of the rifle, Cari stepped forward.

“Shoot me,” Cari said in a voice surprisingly calm. “Edward, shoot me first.”

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20