All your dreams will come to life. So will all your nightmares. ― After narrowly surviving the car crash that killed his best friend, Andrew King is left to grapple with his loss and nurse a traumatic brain injury. With his injury comes a crippl...
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THE GLOCK SHOOK IN Andrew's unsteady hand, his breaths jagged as he stared Rim down. She was unnaturally calm with the cold barrel pressed against the crown of her head.
"Are you what I saw you were?" Andrew asked. He had no use for circling around it, no use for trying to mince words. Either she was or she wasn't.
He waited for a reply, and truth be told he was waiting for a specific one. For confusion, for denial. For a No, Andrew, the dreamland is messing with your head, it's all lies, a No, Andrew, it's not the way you think it is. He was holding his breath, waiting for a reason to lower the gun and crawl back into bed with her, back to a few hours ago when he had the privilege of thinking it genuinely couldn't get any worse than it already was.
None of that ever came. The Glock remained centered on Rim's forehead, her face unmoving save for her eyes which welled with moisture.
"I'm sorry," was all she said.
"Yeah, me too." He turned the safety off and pressed the biting steel of the Glock even harder against her hairline. "Get up."
Rim rose to her feet gingerly, and Andrew repositioned the mouth of the gun under her jaw, inches above where her pulse beat at the side of her neck. "You are going to put on your clothes and pack your things."
"Andrew, please, just-"
He dug the barrel of the gun into the soft crook of her neck, silencing her.
She focused her tear stricken eyes at him. "I had no choice," she rasped, her voice wavering around the pressure of the Glock. "I had to do it for my father."
"Quentin?"
She shook her head hurriedly. "The Director. The Director is my father."
"You need to leave."
"They're going to kill him, Andrew."
"After you pack your things, you are going to leave quietly." He said, ignoring her. "Don't talk to anyone. Just leave, and don't look back."
"Andrew-"
He cocked the gun, a definitive answer to where he stood. "Now."
Rim wiped her face dry and moved to collect what little of her belongings she had while Andrew kept the handgun trained on her. After she was done, he ushered her toward the door and she turned to look at him one last time, the skin around her eyes puffy and flushed.
"I'm sorry."
Pulling the motel door open, he dispelled her out into the cold winter morning.
Andrew closed the door behind him and rested himself against it, dropping the back of his head against the cool surface. He peeled back an edge of the curtain to watch Rim descend the stairs, hunched into herself as the Virginia wind whipped against her mercilessly.
