24. Monster
I’m quicker to put things together than I was with Dr. Rowland, but Hargensen is quicker than she was as well. I’m reaching, and before I can touch her, she has the metal object free, a sleek and tiny pistol.
She’s a better shot than Rowland too.
The first bullet goes through the gap between my right upper arm and ribs, grazing both and ringing the bones like a bell. The second pierces my balloon of a stomach.
I feel it cut right through me, hot and oddly slick, everything moving at a frame-by-frame pace. Blue and white fungus bursts out of the wound in a gnarled nest, faster and more pressurized than the blood which follows.
Sophie and Aaron are barely opening their mouths to scream across from me, leaning forward as if to lunge, a hundred years from now.
Then I’m on top
