"Walter!" Skyden redirected his attention. "Walter!"

He pushed his glasses against the bridge of his nose. "Make her pretty right now or I'll cut your throat! You don't think I'll do it. Do you?"

With her hand at the back of her neck, there was no avoiding it now. "You hurt me," she said, unable to keep the anger out of her voice.

"Hurt. What do you know about hurt? What about loving somebody your whole life and they don't even see you? Do you think that doesn't hurt? Well, it does. It hurts a lot. But you wouldn't know. Everyone always loved Skyden. Pretty Skyden Townsend. She had all the friends. All the boys. She had everything." He caught his breath. "I've been hurting for years! For years! But you didn't even care."

She looked at her hand, striped with blood.

Walter raged. "I'll kill you both. I don't need you breathing." His face flushed. His facial tic pulsed in rapid succession. "This is taking too much time! Way too much time!"

"Okay! Walter," said Skyden. "You're the boss. I see that now. You're giving the orders."

There was going to be brutal violence, it was inevitable, and the rage rising in her chest said she was the one about to release the tiger from its cage.

She slowly got off the bed, went to the desk, and opened the makeup drawer. "Do you like this pink?" She strained to control her tone. "Or do you like the sparkly one?" She glanced at her trembling daughter lying on the bed and then shifted her eyes to Walter.

He leaned over her shoulder. "What sparkly one?"

"This one right here."

He placed his hand on the desktop. "I don't see it." He dipped his neck.

"The silver tube in the back."

As he leaned closer, his body now lower, she snaked her hand into the broken drawer and slowly retracted the screwdriver.

She thought he'd caught her in the act, but his blazing eyes met hers. "Why didn't you see me, Skyden? I was right there all the time. Watching you and waiting for you—"

"Give me that silver one. Please, Walter. You'll love the way it looks on her. It's her favorite. It's so pretty."

The moment he turned his head, Skyden twisted, raised the screwdriver above her head with both hands and drove it down ferociously, pinning his hand to the desk.

A shrill cry burst from his mouth.

Kelsey screamed.

"Kelsey, stay down," Skyden shouted as she lunged for the floor, pulling open the blinds.

As Walter roared, Skyden shouted, "They see you, Frownie."

He looked up when a flash drew his attention. Before his brain could comprehend that a woman across the street had just fired a rifle, the bullet shattered the window and ripped through his chest. The force jolted him from his feet, throwing him backward, dangling from the desk, his hand held firmly in place by the screwdriver. His box cutter dropped to the floor.

Skyden dove onto the bed, comforting her screaming daughter. "It's okay, Kels. It's over."

She snatched the boxcutter from the floor and ripped open the zip ties securing Kelsey's wrists and ankles. Kelsey threw her arms around her mother and wailed.

"I know, baby. I know. It's over."

Skyden glanced at a hole in the wall where the bullet had passed through Walter's chest and knocked a framed award onto the floor.

Kelsey glared at her tormentor, his body contorted, hand pinned to the desk, his head back. His glasses lay on the floor, his face frozen in an ugly grimace, eyes wide, mouth agape. Blood puddled in his airway, he sputtered, his feet twitching as what remained leaked out onto the rug between the trembling blue latex fingers he'd brought to the hole in his chest.

"Don't look," said Skyden, pulling her daughter from the bed toward the door.

"Are you sure he's dead?"

"Don't look, Kels."

"Make sure he's dead."

Skyden struggled against her daughter's desire to examine the body.

"Make sure that piece of shit is dead!"

"He's dead, Kels. He's dead."

Cam chugged up the stairs and leaned into the doorway, worried, groggy, looking like he'd just awakened from a blind hangover. His wild eyes went to his wife and daughter, and then to the shot-out window and the twisted, lifeless body on the floor.

Skyden and Kelsey hobbled in his direction. He wrapped his arms around them, both women shaking and sobbing.

The doorbell rang followed by pounding on the front door. "Mr. and Ms McKenzie," Lloyd hollered from the front porch. He pounded again. "Open the door."

As her parents led her out of the room, Kelsey shouted at the remains of Walter Schmitzer, "Rot in hell, you crazy fuck!"

........

Since he'd last seen Skyden, Grayson Braun had called, texted, and emailed. She blocked his number and deleted his emails so for the past month, with his divorce pending, he'd been sitting in the parking lot outside her yoga studio waiting. But Skyden never showed. He took to cruising through her neighborhood, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the front yard, in the driveway, or out on the sidewalk. He needed to speak with her. He was obsessed with setting things right.

The first thing he saw when he drove down the street toward Skyden's house was a trio of local police cruisers blocking the road with their blue and red lights flashing. A van idled at the curb, its back doors open. A small crowd of onlookers gathered on nearby lawns.

A uniformed officer swung a flashlight and when Grayson didn't move his Mercedes, the cop approached the driver's door, his eyes on Grayson.

"The road's closed, sir. Turn around."

Grayson lowered his window. "What happened?"

"Do you live here, sir?"

He pointed toward the McKenzie's house. "My friends, I mean my coworker–"

"Turn your vehicle around." His voice sharpened.

"Was there some kind of accident or something?"

"Do I smell alcohol on your breath, sir?"

Grayson raised his window, put his car in reverse, and backed up.

The officer pulled his radio off his hip and made a call.

Grayson watched the activity in his rearview mirror as he drove off with questions swirling in his head, hoping one of the police cruisers wouldn't roll up behind him, a breathalyzer at the ready.