Emery's head snapped around and stared into her mother's eyes.

"You can leave now," her mother said, nodding at Phil. "I'm going to finish what you started, dear."

"Fuck you!" Emery cried. "You let this happen! You knew what he was doing?" Her voice was an octave higher and she was shaking. She thought she was starting to go into shock.

"No. He's lying. I knew something terrible had happened when you left, and I kept trying to find you so that I could fix it. Ashley wasn't as strong as you; she couldn't survive what he did to her. She left a note that explained everything." Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. "Your sister was very descriptive in her last note to me. I know about the way he'd come in here, into my daughter's room and violate her with his fingers, his penis." She glowered at him. "You bastard."

Emery dry heaved thinking about Ashley's last days and what Phil had done to her sister-exactly what'd he'd done to her. She was mesmerized by her mother's demeanor. She didn't know this calm and collected woman, but then again, this woman didn't know her either.

"Emery, head back down to Savannah. I'll fix this." Celeste didn't turn her attention away from the man bleeding on Ashley's bed.

"You..." Emery whispered. "You knew where I was."

"Of course, dear. I almost found you in Nashville, but you were too quick."

"How did you find me?"

Celeste waved her question off. "Doesn't matter."

Rachel was watching the entire scene from the door. Emery looked at her, for what, she didn't know.

"Rachel, be a dear and take my only living daughter from this house and get as far from here as possible."

"Don't do this!" Emery pleaded suddenly. "Don't take this away from me. I want to kill him. I need to kill him."

"Emery, I know you think you need to do this, but let me do it. I'm almost positive this would crush you."

"I'm already rubble," Emery muttered.

"I don't want this on your conscience for the rest of your life. I've set things up for you. I need you to be okay." Celeste reached her hand out and grabbed Emery's, giving it a squeeze. "I need to know that I did something right, that I saved one of you."

Emery turned around and looked at her mother. "How can I trust you?"

"I suppose you can't, dear." Her mother's eyes didn't meet hers, but stayed trained on Phil, the man that she'd chosen to bring into the lives of her two little girls. "Can I use your gun? It can't be tracked, can it?"

"Not to Emery," Rachel piped up.

Emery fought with herself. She didn't trust this woman who'd once kissed her cuts and scrapes and watched every gymnastics practice.

Seeing the indecision in Emery's eyes, her mother turned slightly and looked her in the eyes. "I failed both of my daughters. I'm responsible for this. Let me do it," she urged. "I need to do it."

Taking the gun from Emery's hands, she turned and shot Phil in the chest without any hesitation.

Emery blinked and stared at her mother. "Go, dear," her mother said again, her voice just above a whisper. "This may be hard to believe, but I do love you."

Emery looked at her sister's pink comforter, then to Phil, and then to her mother. Time seemed to stand still before Rachel started pulling Emery out of the room. She wanted to say something, scream something, but her thoughts felt like molasses and her voice was stuck in her throat. Emery's eyes were trained on the woman that had once made her pancakes, the woman who gave her life, and she wanted to thank her, to touch her...but then they were running down the stairs.

When they reached the kitchen, Emery took a deep breath. Rachel grabbed her iPhone out of the dock, the loud music giving way to a sickening silence, and opened the back door. The chimes signaled they were leaving, like it was a regular visit. As the door slammed, Emery saw a flash in her sister's bedroom window and heard a gunshot. Then there was another shot and a sound that Emery would never forget. She doubled over. Emery couldn't breathe, she just tried to put one foot in front of the other.

Rachel stopped walking ahead of her and came back to put her arm around Emery's shoulders.

"Emery, I'm so sorry," she whispered. "But we have to go now."

Rachel held her up as they ran to the car, Emery trying to breathe the entire time and failing. Jumping in, Rachel sped to the meeting point where they planned on dropping the car and meeting Derrick. They were quiet. Shock coursed through Emery's body, but no thoughts formed in her mind.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE.

The Rubble of Our Sins

Emery didn't remember getting her car from the motel in Dublin or the four hour drive back to her apartment.

"Emma," Ms. Carter called as she walked slowly up the stairs the next morning, "are you okay?"

Emery turned and looked over her shoulder, nodding.

"Your boyfriend was here, looking for you. I told him you were gone. He said you were sick. Have you been in the hospital?"

"I had a family emergency, Ms. Carter," Emery said, her voice full of physical and mental exhaustion.

Tim had been here looking for her. She couldn't handle that right now. She just wanted to drink and pass out. That was her plan.

"Dear, you look like you're sick. Your boyfriend asked me to let him know if I saw you."

"Don't." Emery didn't recognize her own voice. "Thank you, but I'll call him myself." Liar.

"Okay," the old woman replied with a sigh. "Well, let me know if you need anything." Ms. Carter closed her door and Emery padded up the remainder of the steps and stood in front of the door to her apartment.

She leaned her forehead against the door and her existence disappeared. She didn't know where to go from here. Ashley.

She sent Tim a text.

I'm still not feeling well. Stop bothering Ms. Carter.

Then she pushed open her door and walked into the place that she'd begun to think of as home. She stilled about two steps in because she smelled him. Looking to her right, she found Tim sitting on her couch, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. He looked up and they locked eyes. He blinked slowly, as if making sure she was really there.

"Please leave," she said as she walked into the kitchen and put her bags of vodka on the counter.

Tim was on his feet and in the kitchen in seconds. He pinned her back against the cabinets, his lips inches from hers. She blinked.

"Are you okay?" Tim's thumb grazed her bottom lip and it started to tremble, the events of the last two days bubbling to the surface.

She shook her head.

"Tell me," he demanded.

She shook her head again and closed her eyes this time, trying to ward off the tears that were pooling in her eyes.

"Why the fuck not?" His voice was full of indignation.

She sighed and stepped out of his hold. Turning, she reached into her cabinet and got a glass, filled it with ice, and started pouring her first glass of vodka, straight. Tim stood there and watched as she took gulps. She was still facing away from him after her third gulp.

"You need to leave," she repeated.

"I'm not leaving."

Her head sagged and she sighed heavily. Emery didn't want this. She hadn't wanted to do this now or when she saw Tim in the dance club. She'd always known it'd come down to this.

"Emma, tell me what's going on."

His hand was on her back, threatening to soothe her, but she didn't want to be soothed. She wanted the pain. Emery shook off his hand. The pain was all she deserved. Emery turned around and leaned against the counter, drink in her hand.

"Tim, you don't know me. This," she moved her hand over her wildly to indicate her, "is why you shouldn't have even talked to me after the dance club. I'm poison. I'm a criminal and I can't tell you shit about it because you're a cop." She spit the word cop out like it was a disease.

Tim's eyes grew wide. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how you need to get the fuck out of here and never come back." Her voice didn't give away the utter devastation she was feeling, but sounded steely.

"Emma, we can work anything out. I love you." He took a step toward her and she moved away, walking toward the back of her apartment.

"You don't love me, Tim. You don't even know me."

"Emma, talk to me." Tim followed Emery and stood right behind her.

"STOP FUCKING CALLING ME THAT!" Emery turned and pushed Tim's chest to get some space.

His eyes widened and he took a step back. "You love me," he whispered.

"It doesn't fucking matter." She let out a cold laugh at the fact that she did love him, but needed him to leave. "I actually think I'm incapable of love, Tim." This was a lie she now wished was true.

"No, you love me. I feel it," Tim asserted.

"You feel my orgasm, Tim, that's it." Emery actually felt her heart crack in two and she looked away from him so he wouldn't see the truth in her eyes.

His eyes lit with pain. "Why are you doing this? Do you want me to go?"

"I warned you. I told you this wouldn't work and you just kept pushing. You wouldn't listen." She couldn't look at him anymore so she walked back to the kitchen and filled up her glass again.

"Emma, what's going on?"

"We're done," she said softly. The brittle silence between them hung in the air. She tried to breathe and hoped he would just leave.

"We're done?" He looked at her from where she'd left him standing in the den.

She glanced sideways to see resignation fill his features. Those perfect features that she loved to trace with her fingertips that she'd never see again.

"We're done?"

"Yeah, we're done." Emery turned up the glass, the vodka going down smoothly now. "Don't come back."

"You're really doing this? You lied to me about being sick, you come back here on a mission to get drunk, and now you're breaking up with me?"

"I LIE TO YOU EVERYDAY!" She turned and took a few steps toward where he was standing and yelled at him, shocking him again. "Don't you get that? I fucking told you. I told you that and you didn't care." She pointed her finger at him accusingly. The liquor was making her mouth a little loose. "You wanted to give in to whatever we feel, but guess what? Our feelings don't matter. Nothing fucking matters. I can't be with you and you shouldn't want to be with me."

He took a step toward the kitchen again. "Why did you lie to me every day?"

"Fuck, Tim," she said, her voice exasperated, "just leave. Okay?" She was begging now.

"Why?" he repeated his infuriating question to her back.

"Because you fucking ruined everything. Now leave, please." She turned to face him and they stared at each other, but there was no hunger like there usually was, only desperation and heartbreak. Emery blinked first. "I'm going to get very drunk to mourn the breakup of us, so get out so I can get on with it."

Stepping toward her, he reached out and took her left forearm and ran his fingers over her scars.

"GET OUT!" she screamed and doubled over. Tears started then. Great, huge sobs. She couldn't help it. He was everything she needed and couldn't have, but she was lethal and she loved him too much for that.

"Don't do this, Emma," he pleaded. "You don't want to."

She couldn't speak, and she didn't look up from where her body had collapsed in on itself, she just pointed to the door.

He took steps backward toward the door, clearly shocked by what had transpired. "Make sure this is what you want, Emma. If I leave now, I'm not coming back." His voice was soft but resolute.

"I know, that's the plan," she straightened up and said clearly. Then she grabbed the bottle and poured herself another drink.

Emery kept the covers over her head, hiding. Sometimes it helped to just hibernate. She'd purchased three bottles of different flavored vodka on her way home from Atlanta. She'd drank most of the vanilla vodka yesterday when she broke up with Tim.

She'd broken up with Tim.

In Atlanta, everything went terribly wrong. Not that anything she did ever went according to plan, but she wanted to avenge her sister, hoping that her own soul would have been mended. She thought it would be easy, but reality had crashed into her like a freight train going full speed.

She'd wanted to kill Phil, but her mom did it. She'd wanted to be done thinking about them, but she couldn't, no matter what she tried.

The heavy thud of her mother's body falling to the floor as she and Rachel were leaving the house echoed through her brain repeatedly. The image of her mother shooting Phil appeared every time she closed her eyes. The slackness in his jaw, the blood splattering on the light pink of her sister's comforter seemed to be tattooed behind her eyelids. It didn't matter what she did, it was there. She was sure the dull sound of her mother's body hitting the floor in Ashley's room would haunt her until the day she finally left this godforsaken earth.

Fucking ruined.

"Ugh," she muttered to herself. She only had a half of the marshmallow vodka left and that was because it was disgusting. She rolled the vodka bottle on the floor as she lay in her bed trying not to think of anything. Could she just live in the space of nothing? She wouldn't care about anything there and she wouldn't feel any pain. That way she wouldn't feel as if razors were slicing her open, a new cut opening as soon as one healed, over and over again in a vicious cycle. How could one person bear so much? She didn't know if she would make it; she just wanted to stay in this place of nothing.