My breath cuts off. A wave of nausea overwhelms me, my stomach twists under the crushing weight of panic and despair.
I don’t believe it.
It feels like hands are ripping through my flesh to tear my heart into a billion shards. The room shrinks around me, spinning, until my head knocks against the wall behind me.
“You’re lying… you’re lying… you couldn’t have! You’re lying!”
And that’s when I realize my finger is on the trigger.
“You couldn’t have done that!” I scream.
Everyone stares, but nobody moves. None of them believe I’ll shoot—and rightly so, I feel incapable. Despite the rage pounding in me, grief takes over, and my tears flow harder.
“My God,” I sob.
Jericho keeps his ecstatic grin. Unshaken.
I don’t even know what I’m supposed to feel anymore. Despair? Hopelessness? Pain
