“We surrender!” we both shout over the gunfire and yelling in our direction.
The gunfire almost immediately stops. The muffled shouts draw quieter.
“Don’t move!” someone yells at us.
We don’t. We feel two guns pressed against our backs, our arms are yanked behind our bodies, and our wrists are tied together with rope. Our eyes meet in a show of solidarity. If his eyes are the last thing I see before I die, I’ll die having loved and been loved, which is more than I ever expected out of my life.
The men shove us into the center of the terrace until we are surrounded by the entire squad pointing guns at us.
I glance at Langston, realizing we might have chosen the wrong course of action to get us out of here. This doesn’t feel like they are about to torture us. It feels like we’re facing a firing squad.
The woman from inside comes out with a smirk on her face.
“Have you decided?” she asks.
When we don’t answer, she tries again. “Have you decided which of you is going to die and which is going to live? Only one of you has to die; the other gets to live a long, happy life.”
Langston looks at me, and I know it breaks him to not try and save me, but I shake my head, and he nods. We are star crossed lovers destined to die together.
“Either both of us live, or both of us die; there is no other option,” I say.
The woman smiles. “Fine, it makes no difference to me. I get paid either way.”
“Look at me,” Langston says.
I turn my head and stare deeply into his eyes.
This is the moment when it all ends; we die.
I should be terrified.
Shaking.
Crying.
Begging.
I should be afraid of death. I’m not.
I smile. Langston smiles back.
We love each other. I have no regrets. If I only got to love Langston out loud for a day, it was enough. We got our one day. That’s more than most people experience after a lifetime of searching. Our love was real; it was all-encompassing. It was enough.
“Fire!” she screams.
I hold onto Langston’s eyes for as long as I can, but eventually, the hits of the bullets are going to knock me dead. I hold onto his eyes until the darkness comes.
The darkness comes too soon; Langston is gone, and I’m in hell.
29
Langston
Dying—what does it feel like?
Immense nothingness.
The darkest of darks.