On the edge

Chapter 16: On the edge

Sue watched Adam's look turn a little colder; the corners of his mouth dropped slightly, and the inner ends of his eyebrows came a little closer to each other. He seemed utterly displeased, and Sue began to realise that this whole situation might be a tad more serious than she had thought it at first. There was no getting out of it without giving Adam at least a bit of what he wanted.
"But he used to be all mysterious about something in his desk over there," the red-haired said abut her father and his habits.
"I couldn't make much sense out of it but maybe you can..." she suggested, pretending she had found something else along with a list of George's debts.
And then? What should she do next? Sue let her eyes wander across the room and stopped at the sight of an old chair. The white colour it was coated in had almost completely come off, and Sue wondered if it was still capable of holding the weight of a grown person. While that might not have been the best moment to become overly reflective, she began to realise how little she had actually done since her father's passing.
All of his clothes were still in his wardrobe, in his bedroom; where his bed and the rest of his furniture was still standing as if they were waiting for their owner to come home anytime soon. His worn-out sheepskin jacket still hung on the coat stand in the hallway; his shoes stood right next to his slippers and Sue's trainers. In the kitchen cupboard, just above the coffee machine, one could still find a box of his favourite tea; Jasmine tea. Sue didn't like it, and neither did James, and so it was only staying there, untouched, in that cupboard next to the fridge. George Reid was still very much alive within these walls, and Sue knew that that wasn't something he would have wanted.
"First, you'll be a bit sad, but then you'll remember all the wonderful times we had together. All the nights we listened to the Sirens sing," Sue remembered her father tell her only days before he died.
"And along will come someone else to take your hand. Make sure it's someone you'd jump off those cliffs with," he had assured her, and he had been right.
Sue only hadn't been ready to acknowledge it until then.
"But now I am, bitch," she muttered to herself as grabbed the old chair by its backrest.
Adam was way too busy rifling through all four drawers of George's desk, to notice the young redhead approach him from behind; with a wooden chair, a plan, a whole great lot of despair, and even more determination. Next thing he knew, was a crippling pain at the back of his head. First, everything before his eyes went black, but only for a very short moment. Then, he saw a hundred, very bright, little lights flickering in front of him. Everything turned in circles; someone pushed him from behind; forced his upper body onto the old desk. He felt hands searching his waist for something, and when they finally let go of him, he held the back of his head, staggering around for a moment before eventually collapsing.
"Dammit..." Adam muttered quietly, looking at the hand he had just touched his wound with.
He could feel blood oozing down the back of his neck, and when he finally seemed a bit soberer, the dark-haired looked up, at Sue, and into the barrel of a gun. His very own firearm, actually. For a few seconds, the two former classmates stared at each other silently. It was Adam who broke the silence with an almost maniac laughter.
"What are you going to do, Susie? Shoot me?" he jeered.
Sue looked at him coldly and uncocked the gun.
"If I have to," she replied calmly, "If you make me."
Again, Adam only laughed out loudly.
"You don't have the guts to," he said, "I know you, Susannah, you don't have the guts to kill someone."
"Is that so?" Sue asked.
"Maybe you should ask Stephen, what else I do have the balls to," she said and watched Adam turn a bit paler than he usually was.
He then, however, decided not to believe what he had seen no proof of, lifted himself from the white tiles and covered the barrel of the firearm with the palm of his hand.
"You don't have the guts to shoot me, Susannah," he said again, "You don't, and we both know that."
Adam tried to rip the gun out of Sue's hands, but she held onto it with all the strength she could summon. She wouldn't let go, no matter how strongly he tried to pull and push; even when he grabbed her wrist and tried to twist it, and Sue was sure for a moment that he'd break it, she wouldn't let go. If it had been for nothing bur her own sake, maybe she wouldn't even have been able to disarm Adam. But imagining him, or one his two dogsbodies, hurting James because of her father's stupidity, and her ignorance, really gave wings to Sue's resoluteness. How did George borrow all that money, and she had never noticed anything? Because she didn't want to see it; Sue wanted to believe that her father was the strongest and the best of all fathers, and she had shut her eyes every time he had somehow miraculously managed to pay hundreds of pounds for her school material while there were barely any customers in his shop. She had decided to ignore all the times her father had overreacted, when he had caught her open one of the drawers of his old desk, and she had blinded herself to the many clues that something was wrong, through the many, long years.
"I've always had a weak spot for strong women," Adam pressed through clenched teeth.
"But you're really starting to make me very angry, knob-head!" he cursed, "It's a shame you make me hurt you like this."

The first shot came unexpected and startled all three men, although James most probably more than the other two. Although the second one caught him a bit less off guard, it was still just as terrifying. He wanted to run into the office but was held in place by Adam's assistants. All three stared at the door, in either great anticipation or sheer panic, and when it finally opened, everyone held his breath. Although Adam carried a firearm, he had never actually used it. That wasn't his wayto do business. He merely ever showed it off to intimidate his victims. In hindsight, he hadn't changed all that much since his high school days. He was still the same pretentious little shit he had always been.
"Sue!" James yelled when he saw his wife walk out of the room, breathing rapidly as if she had just run half a marathon.
Sue had a few splashes of blood on her right cheek, but quickly exanimating the rest of her body and not finding any visible injuries; James dared to hope that it wasn't hers.
"You two!" he heard his wife scream, pointing a gun at the two men that were still holding him by his shoulders.
"Let go of him or I swear I'll send you to the happy hunting ground along with that arrogant prick!" she shouted.
Neither was armed, and since they figured that Adam must have been well dead, after taking two bullets, they didn't see the need for them to join him. And so they both immediately took their hands off of James, ran for the shop's door so precipitously, they almost forgot to open it before leaving, as they fled into the night. It was only then that Sue let the firearm, which James recognised as the same that Adam had been pointing at his chest fifteen minutes ago, fall to the ground. She was still breathing heavily, and her whole body was shaking. James took her into his embrace and tried to calm her with gentle caresses and words of comfort. He didn't dare look into the office room in which he had the shots heard being fired. James saw a slow-paced little stream of red quietly creep through the grout lines in between the tiles, and he figured that there was no need for checking on Adam.
"It's alright, Sue, it's alright," James said, but Sue seemed too excited to calm down the least bit.
"Nothing's alright Jim!" she objected, "I just shot... I just shot him!"
"In self-defense... It's his gun..." her husband tried to calm her.
There was no other possibility but that she had shot Adam in self-defense, was there?
"No, no,..." Sue said, "The first bullet went off accidently."
She sniffled loudly before she continued.
"We fought for the gun, and it went off. He got hit in the upper leg, he-... He fell, and he was so angry," she remembered.
James listened closely to his wife's explanation. Indeed, he recalled having heard two shots with a little pause in between them.
"And he said he'd hurt you," Sue continued.
She began to tear up and fought hard with herself to not choke on that huge lump in her throat. Things had been going great, nobody had ever even asked about Stephen, neither was there something on the news... And then, Adam happened.
"He said he'd hurt you, very much, until you'd break and die from pain," Sue told James, "And that he'd make me watch..."
"And then..:" James began but hesitated.
"And then I shot him," Sue said under tears, looking at the blond.
"I- I-... Couldn't let that happen," she added.
James tried to convince her that still, she had acted out of nothing but despair and self-defense. That it wasn't her fault and that Adam's death was but a tragic accident he had ultimately brought over himself. And it was while James suggested calling the police when Sue cut him off.
"No," she said, "They won't believe me."
"Of course they-..." her husband tried to reason with her, but she shook her head vigorously.
"There's someone else," she said.
"Someone else?" James inquired.
"Stephen..." Sue mumbled quietly, "But I swear, his death was an accident indeed!"
"What?" was all the blond could say; his eyes by now almost twice their usual size and his mouth wide open.
"He came here for the same money Adam was asking about," Sue explained.
"And I didn't know what it was that he wanted from me, but he didn't believe me... And he... He-..." she tried to tell James what Stephen had intended doing to her, but she couldn't phrase it.
She couldn't speak the words.
"He hit me, and I was lying on the floor when... He... On top..." she stuttered with eyes so glassy, one could easily have mistaken them for doll eyes.
"And then, I don't know... I just grabbed the first thing next to me and hit him, and then he was dead," she continued, "And I panicked, I-... I don't even know... but I panicked..."
"What did you do with the body?" James wanted to know.
"Vauxhall lakes..." Sue said.
"I stole your canoe," she admitted.
That one confession wouldn't be the one to spoil the soup, she figured. Not after having told her husband that she had killed two men; one struck with a heavy bronze statue on the head, and one shot in the chest with a forty-four magnum. And it did make James laugh a bit indeed.
"Don't worry about the canoe," he said, "And besides, you've left me three times its worth in money on the counter, remember?"
Sue nodded quietly, "Yeah, but still... I used you."
"And I wouldn't want it any other way," James replied.
He pulled a few strains of hair out of her face, wiped away her tears, and cupped her face with both of his hands.
"I swore that I'd love and cherish you, have you now and always; through the good and the bad, remember?" he asked.
"I don't think that's what Reverend Collins meant..." Sue objected.
"I don't care," James said.
"I have sworn it, and I'll live up to it," he promised.
From afar, they could hear sirens approaching. Police cars, they both assumed. Someone must have heard a handgun being fired.
"We must go," James pressed, "There's not much time left."
"Don't," Sue tried to convince him otherwise, "You've done nothing wrong, stay."
But the blond wouldn't have it.
"Your failure is mine as well," he insisted.
"And where would we go?" Sue wanted to know, slowly growing impatient.
Did he not understand how very serious the situation was?
"Our days may be numbered in this life," James replied, quoting his wedding vows, "But I shall find you in the next one; and every life after that, and spend it by your side."
He then told his wife that there was no greater misery, not tragic worse, and no harm anyone could do to him that would be more painful, than being separated from her. He took Sue's hand and with a nod he signalled her that they should leave; as quick as possible.
"Alright..." the red-haired whispered.
It almost felt as if she were in a dream; as if nothing around her was real. She felt the warmth of James' hand, but everything else seemed to vanish into thin air slowly. Sue could hardly even hear the blond's voice or understand the words he spoke. All she knew, and all that mattered, was that he was with her; and would always be. Even if always meant no more than twenty minutes from that moment on.

"So this is what it has come to?" Sue asked as she looked at James.
He stood right beside her, on the top of the cliffs that were just about half a mile away from her business. They had made their way through the small wood behind the row of houses that included Sue's shop and had strolled uphill from there. The winds were quite harsh; the sea was wild. They could hear the waves break and wash against the rock of the cliffs, and it let made their blood run cold.
"Don't be afraid," James tried to comfort Sue, squeezing her hand tightly.
"Everything will be alright," he promised and smiled at her silently.
A single tear ran down the red-haired's left cheek and held onto her chin for a little moment before it fell and wet the back of her husband's hand.
"I'm sorry," Sue said and tried to smile back at James.
"I'm sorry that I never looked at you," she apologised.
No words could have described how very much sorry she felt. All the time she had wasted, and all the chances she had missed... They could have had so much more; some would say: everything. Instead, they stood on the edge of St. Margaret's Bay's white cliffs, trying to summon enough courage to take another step forward; another, and then one more...
"I didn't want to see what my father was doing all these years," Sue continued, "And I didn't have the guts to see more than everybody said you were... Everything you truly are."
She reached out her other hand to gently caress James' cheek. It felt cold from the stormy weather outside and had turned slightly pink. And despite the cold, the harsh winds, and the now inevitable, impending doom praying on them, James smiled. As sincerely and warmly as he always did.
"We had ten months," he said,
"The best ten months in the entire twenty-seven years of my life," he assured Sue, "I mean, I married you!"
He laughed a little and then looked at his wife as if with a single gaze, he could see the moon set and the sun rise; a thousand stars shine brightly, but none brighter than her. There was no light greater than hers, and with her hand in his, there'd be no abyss to deep and no gloom too dark.
"I would do it all over again, even if I knew that it would all come to this, again," James said.
"I love you," Sue replied with a smile, although regretting a little that the first time she ever told him so, would also be the only, and the last time.
"I know," James said with a cheeky grin and kissed her softly.
He held her hand even tighter than a moment before and when Sue nodded, they both took a step forward; then another.

And then, they fell.