“I'm sorry I made you cry.”
“That’s okay, Chance, it’s okay. Just unlock the handcuff and let’s go home.”
For a moment it looked like he was going to do it. Summer held her breath in anticipation, but then he shook his head.
“I can't go home.”
“Can't? Why?” Hope asked.
“Because I killed people.”
“The cops know you're sick. We can get you help.”
“But I won't be able to be with you anymore,” he said sadly.
Hope didn’t answer. What could she say to that? If they went home, Chance would wind up either in prison or a psychiatric facility, depending on what he was charged with and how lenient a judge felt at sentencing. But if she said that to him it could push him over the edge, and he was already balancing precariously on a tightrope between sane and insanity.
“I can't be without you, Hope. I’ll die.” Chance leaned over and tenderly kissed her forehead and then her lips.
“I won't leave you. I’ll stand by you. Always. I promise.”
“I know.” Chance smiled. A crazy smile. Not evil like the one he’d had before, but the sense of foreboding it engendered was the same.
He raised the gun.
Pointed it at Hope’s head.
“Summer, don’t look,” Luke screamed at her.
But again, she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
The gun fired once.
Twice.
Hope dropped first.
Then Chance.
And with the bang of the gun, her mind finally snapped.
It tossed her into a cool, empty, quiet zone where nothing could touch her.
* * * * *
2:13 A.M.
“Come on, Summer, answer me,” Luke begged.
She hadn’t responded to any of his pleas or commands since the gun went off, which had to be at least thirty minutes ago. He had screamed at her not to watch her friends die, but she hadn’t listened. The shock of watching Hope’s execution and Chance’s suicide had pushed her over the edge, and she had gone quiet.
“Don’t do this, honey.”
He was worried about her. He didn’t know how badly her arm was broken. Even if the break was relatively minor, complications of it going untreated for so long could be bone deformity, muscle and ligament damage, or permanent nerve damage.
If she had a compound fracture, the complications could be so much more severe. She could develop, or could already have developed, an infection in the open wound, which could spread to her blood or the exposed bone. She might develop compartment syndrome, lose blood supply to the limb, and be at risk of losing her arm, and possibly even her life.
Summer needed help, but he had no way of getting it for her.