“Camila,” he said, his voice softer as he moved closer to her. “Don’t shoot, okay? We’re in a residential building, if you shoot right now and something went wrong, you could shoot someone that has absolutely nothing to do with this. You wouldn’t want that to happen, right?”
His words had her trembling even more. No, Camila didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Really, she didn’t even want to hurt Adrien, because she didn’t want to deal with the consequences of it, but the man wasn’t really giving her that many options, now was he?
“It’s okay, the cops are on their way, you don’t have to do this,” Samuel said, voice low and persuasive. He came up beside her, one arm circling around her shoulders, the other carefully reaching for the gun. “I’ll take care of this, all right? We need to allow the police to deal with him, Camila. It’s the best way. Okay?”
Camila thought about it for a minute, then nodded jerkily as she loosened her hands around the gun. Samuel took it from her gently, then after checking the safety was on, put it away in his pocket. The tension around them suddenly left, leaving Camila feeling cold, even as Samuel put both arms around her and held her close. Adrien slumped all the way to the floor, looking frustrated, his eyes a bit wet.
They stood there only for a few short minutes as their neighbors all returned to their apartments. Camila sat on the stair step, hugging her legs, her mind blank. She looked up when she heard the police and paramedics come through the front door to the building, then a bunch of them moved up the stairs to her and the twins.
She was in a daze as Samuel directed the paramedics to her, and spoke with the cops. Her head in a fog, she returned to her apartment with the help of one of the medics. They checked her out, finding she’d broken two ribs in her slam to get the gun, so they taped her up. Her throat they said would be bruised and sore for a while and to take some Ibuprofen as needed for the pain. She sat on her couch staring at nothing as she waited for Samuel to return to her.
Sometime later, she looked up as the door opened and Samuel walked inside, closing and locking it behind him. He moved to sit down beside her on the couch and pulled her into his side. She buried her face in his shoulder, moving her clawing hands from her legs to his shirt, and closed her eyes as she trembled.
She wanted to cry, but she felt too exhausted to.