Bound Eternal - Part Six (The End)
The Exchange of Vows
THE EXCHANGE OF VOWS
The rain came down harder, but Donny didn’t care. He walked back to the room slowly, soaked to the bone, and right up to the door, wondering how he was going to simply leave.
He pushed open the door and saw Lila’s body laid out on the bed. Not breathing, bare-chested and arms spread out to her sides. A dark bruise ringed her throat like a macabre necklace already, and Donny felt his body fall back into the wall. The door shut slowly.
Emma stood behind it, her hair wild, mascara streaked down her cheeks like something out of a terrible horror film.
His heart nearly exploded out of fear alone in that moment.
For a second, Donny couldn’t move. His brain refused to process what he was seeing. Then his stomach turned, and he stumbled back against the wall.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “What the fuck happened in here?”
She was shaking, but not from fear. Her eyes were bright, feverish.
“She touched you,” she said softly. “She touched you without my permission.”
“Emma… what did you do?”
“She wanted to know about you,” Emma said, her voice trembling with laughter. “She kept asking questions. About us. About love.” She looked up at him, her lips curling into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “So, I showed her what love looks like when it’s real!”
Donny’s heart pounded so hard it hurt. “You killed her?”
Emma tilted her head, like she was considering the question. “She was in the way. She didn’t understand us. Nobody does.”
He took a step forward, hands raised. “Okay. Okay, we can fix this. We’ll figure it out. Just—just calm down.”
Emma’s expression snapped. “Fix this?” she hissed. “You think this is broken? No, this is the night, Donny. The night we finally exchange our vows to one another.”
“Vow? What vow?” he asked, already knowing what she meant but too frightened to accept it.
“You remember. You promised me. If one of us stops loving the other, the one who stops first kills the other—and then themselves. So, we can restart.”
He shook his head. “That was just talk. You were high, or drunk… we both were—”
“No,” she said, stepping closer. “That was truth. That was us.”
She pulled her hand from behind her back, and the revolver caught the light. The same gun she’d used on every job, the one he’d watched Emma clean with almost tender precision. But this time, something was different.
The sight of it in her hand sent a crawling panic that spread through his chest, the kind that told him she wasn’t bluffing. Not tonight.
The chrome gleamed under the flickering lamp, throwing fractured light across her face. Her eyes shimmered with that familiar, dangerous calm—the look she got right before pulling a trigger.
“Emma, put that down.”
She thumbed the hammer back with a slow, deliberate click. The sound cut through the room like a blade.
“Don’t you see? We’ve done this before—you and me,” she said, her voice soft but charged, her eyes growing larger as she stepped toward him. “This is how we will do it this time.”
She spun the cylinder and then caught it mid-spin, stopping it with a snap.
“This time?”
“I swear, I can feel it,” she whispered. “Maybe the 1920s or something, when the world still had some kind of soul. We found each other then, and we found each other now. That’s not luck, that’s proof.” She leaned closer, her words tumbling faster, as she raised the revolver to her temple. “They don’t want people like us to remember. The world’s built to distract us—the ads, the commercials, fake love songs, all of it! It’s a trap to keep us from seeing what’s real.”
Her voice rose, trembling with conviction. “But we know better. If it ever gets too loud, too fake, we can just leave it behind… again. Kill the noise, kill the bodies, and just meet again. That’s what soulmates do. We always find our way back.”
“But shouldn’t… shouldn’t you give me the gun? I fell out of love first, right?” Donny finally admitted. “Isn’t that the vow?”
“But will you really go through with it, Donny?” she whispered.
Donny’s breath caught. The room seemed to shrink around him as he looked at her, unable to look away. His emotions torn.
“I love you so much I’ll show you!” she screamed.
“Emma, stop—”
Click.
A sigh of relief fell over her. She dropped the gun to her side. “Now… your turn.”
“You are fucking nuts! You know that. How is any of this making sense to you? Huh?” He stared at her, at the corpse on the bed, at the storm clawing at the window. “You’re sick,” he said. “You killed her. You killed—”
Emma’s smile faltered. “Don’t ruin this, Donny. We’re almost free.”
“Free?” His voice cracked, raw and desperate. “You’re talking about dying! I don’t want to fucking die! I spent ten years in prison, and I found you. I thought I could have… have something normal.”
Emma’s lips curled into a slow, pitying smile. “No, we are not normal. Never were, honey.”
She stepped closer, her body pressing against him, the heat of her skin searing through his shirt. The scent of her perfume suffocated his lungs. Emma took his trembling hands and guided them to the revolver, placing it in his lap like a gift.
“Now,” she whispered, her breath brushing his ear, “show me how much you love me.”
“I don’t!” Donny’s throat tightened. “I don’t fucking love you!”
Her eyes flashed, wild and electric. “Then kill me, you pussy!”
Thunder cracked overhead, shaking the thin walls. The rain roared against the window, drowning out everything but the sound of his heartbeat.
Donny’s hand closed around the gun. It felt impossibly heavy, slick with sweat. He lifted it, his arm trembling, the barrel wavering between them.
“Do it,” she hissed. “Prove something’s still real in you.”
His finger hovered over the trigger. The world seemed to hold its breath.
Click.
Click.
Click… click… click.
Empty.
The silence that followed was worse than the thunder.
Emma’s laughter broke it—sharp and cruel. It filled the room, bouncing off the walls, wrapping around him like barbed wire. He dropped the gun. It hit the floor with a dull thud. His hands shook violently, tears spilling down his face.
“Oh, Donny,” she whispered, stepping closer, her voice trembling with delight. “You really would’ve done it.”
“You’re insane,” he choked out, his voice breaking. “You’re fucking insane.”
Emma tilted her head, studying him like he was something fragile and fascinating. Then she smiled. It made his blood run cold.
“No, baby,” she said softly, tilting her head. “I’m just the only one who’s honest about what love really costs. I treated you like a king, but that wasn’t good enough. Would have licked the shit off your boots—”
“Shut the fuck up! No, you wouldn’t have; you lie! You are a twisted fucking person. You controlled me. Manipulated me and conditioned me into something that feared you. I was… was used to bend at your will however you wanted!” he shouted. “You’ve been breaking me down since the day we met!”
Emma’s face twisted, something feral breaking through. “You think I broke you? No, baby. I built you. You were nothing before me.” She walked over to the nightstand and reached into her bag, pulling out his gun. “I loved you even then!”
Donny lunged. The gun went off. The blast threw him back, pain blooming hot in his side. He hit the floor, gasping, blood pooling beneath him.
Emma screamed, dropped the gun, and fell to her knees beside him. “No, no, no, not yet,” she sobbed. “You weren’t supposed to go first.”
He grabbed her wrist, yanked her down, and with his free hand pulled the shank from his boot—a crude, sharpened piece of metal he’d made weeks ago, just in case.
“Donny—”
He drove it into her chest. Once and then twice in a rapid motion, like he was on the prison yard fighting for his life once again. He kept stabbing until she stopped moving. Covered in blood, Donny dropped his weapon and sobbed like a baby. He shook and held onto her, whispering her name. He was broken on how to feel.
Emma’s breath hitched, her eyes wide with shock, then went soft with some relief. She looked happy. Her hand—slick and red—found his face and smeared blood on his lips.
“See?” she whispered, blood bubbling at her lips, smiling through the ruin of her face. “You do love me.”
The room was silent except for the rain.
Then—
A shadow emerged out of the corner of Donny’s side, and the shocking click of another gun as it pressed against the base of his skull.
Donny froze. The air in the room thickened, heavy with blood and rain and the ghost of everything he’d ever wanted. Slowly, he turned his head.
Lila was standing, her chest still bare and alive, as if she’d simply risen to finish the part she’d been paid to play. The gun in her hand didn’t tremble. Her eyes were hollow and calm. She looked like a professional.
And then it hit him—the vow.
Emma’s vow.
If one of them stopped loving the other, the one who stopped first would kill the other—and then themselves. But Emma had always been smarter, always one step ahead. She’d made sure of it.
Insurance.
She’d hired this girl, this ghost in red lipstick, to make sure the story ended the way she wanted. To make sure they’d be together forever.
Donny’s breath came shallow, ragged. The room tilted, the edges of everything blurring. He thought of the first time he saw Emma—how her laugh had sounded like salvation, how her eyes had promised something close to peace. He thought of how easily he’d believed her.
He had a fraction of a second to hope—just a flicker of prayer—that there was reincarnation, or some endless loop of this madness like she said. Would he just wake again in another life, drawn back to her, doomed to love her and lose himself all over again.
The thunder rolled once more and…
THE END
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