Every Precious Thing

CHAPTER EIGHTY — FOUR

“It’S over, Dr. Paskota,” Harper yelled. “You know it is.”

Erica’s mind raced. There had to be some way out of this. She was Dr. Erica Paskota! She was the one who called the shots. She was the one in charge. Things couldn’t be this fucked up. They just couldn’t!

She winced as pain radiated out of her wound. Her wound! She’d been shot! She never thought in her entire life a bullet would ever touch her skin. This was wrong, all wrong!

“You’re a dead man, Harper,” she yelled.

This should have been simple. She should have already been on the way back with the girl.

Done.

Done, done, done.

But she’d been shot. And it was that son of a bitch Harper’s fault. He shouldn’t have even been involved at all.

I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to get out of here.

But even as the words repeated in her mind, they began to sound hollow.

“Dr. Paskota, put your gun down, and come out,” Harper said.

He was only a few feet away, just around the front of the shed.

I’m not getting out of here, am I?

The thought actually relaxed her for the first time in…years.

Harper had said she would be going to prison, but he was wrong.

She unscrewed the suppressor from her gun, and slipped the barrel into her mouth without hesitation.