The grey was getting greyer.
He died standing.
24
G
LeviwasmovingasAsher gasped awake.
He scrambled off the mattress before Asher’s hand finished arriving at his own throat, his bare feet hitting the carpet in a half-stride that was already heading for the door. Asher was still a beat behind him.
He was at the door before Asher had sat up.
“LEVI —”
The hallway was cold, the fog pressed against the window at the end, and his bare feet made no sound on the carpet as he ran toward the lounge. He could hear the morning before he reached it — coffee being poured, a spoon against a mug, Maddie’s laugh at something Jasper had said, the script of a room full of people having a breakfast none of them knew was about to be interrupted.
He hit the doorway and the lounge stopped. Six faces turned toward him at once, mugs halfway to mouths, all freezing at thesame time around the barefoot man who had just come through the doorway at the speed of someone being hunted.
Levi crossed the room to the fireplace without a word and took the rifle off the wall.
The lounge erupted.
Tyler was up out of his chair shouting, “Levi what the FUCK?”
Maddie’s coffee cup hit the bar with a wet crack as she screamed his name, and Elliot was on his feet with both hands open in that careful way a person held their hands when someone was about to do something terrible. “Levi, look at me, look at me, look at me, put the gun down—”
Levi flipped the safety off, turned the rifle in his hands, and put the barrel under his own jaw.
The room made a sound that was not a single voice. It was a collective inhale, a chair going over, Maddie sobbing his name, Jasper’sno no no nocoming out of him in a chant.
Asher came through the doorway in a dead sprint, skidding on the hardwood at the edge of the carpet, his chest heaving. His eyes found Levi across twenty feet of room and his whole body lurched forward like he understood at the same speed his mouth opened. “LEVI DON’T —”
“I love you,” Levi said.
Then he pulled the trigger.
25
E
Thebathroomdoorwassix feet away, and he was out of the bed before he finished gasping awake. Six feet was all he needed.
“Levi, don’t!”
Levi was through the door as Asher got an elbow under himself on the bed. He slammed it shut and locked it, not even bothering to turn the lights on.
“LEVI —” The first fist hit the door before he’d turned around. “LEVI OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR —”
There wasn’t much in here, and it looked worse than before. The tile had yellowed, though it was hard to tell with the light filtering through the fog at the window. There was a cracked mirror, crooked, like it was added to the wall above the sink like an afterthought.
The door shook in its frame as something heavy hit the other side. The lock held. Levi had a window of however many seconds that was worth.
He picked up the soap dish from the edge of the sink and swung it into the mirror. It took two strikes until the glass gave and came out of the frame in three big pieces and a shower of smaller ones. Levi caught the largest piece as it fell, and the edge of it opened his palm.
“LEVI — PLEASE — PLEASE BABY PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR — PLEASE LISTEN TO ME!”
Asher’s voice had gone fromdon’ttopleasein the time it had taken to cross the bathroom. The pleading did not reach Levi.