Showing teeth, he threatened to gun-butt her.

“Benjamin!” she wailed.

“Don’t Benjamin me.”

He cocked the gun, moved it between us, back and forth, landing on her neck. “Now you shut your fucking trap or I’ll put a bullet through you and stick this thing in his hand.”

My heart was slamming but she was fierce in the eyes, jarringly unafraid—his leg was soaked brown-red right down to the sneaker, but he could stand. He pushed her chin up with the pistol. “Play this right, Cin, the two of us can run off together.”

I watched them, hands up, newly grim. I wasn’t sure I’d done the right thing following them, wasn’t sure at all. She was pale, heavy-lidded.

Appelfeld said, “Whatta you say? We can make some new music. And this time, you’ll have my back.”

He leaned into her, pressed the gun deeper into her temple. And yet there was no shock in her eyes—like she knew all those years that this moment would come.

“Please,” I said, measuring every syllable. “Please, Jensen. Shoot her and you’ve got nothing.”

She tried to speak and he said, “Both of you—quiet.” But the gun stayed in place.

“Shoot me instead,” I said. “Right now, let her go. Or let me get you the LP, whatever you want. When Elkaim kicks, you’ll get whatever’s his, too. I’ll talk him into it, I swear it. But let her go.”

She looked to me like you might greet someone in a nightmare, silent, knowing. The puzzle had come together for her at last. For me too.

His face twisted and hardened with the full force of a halfcentury of hurt. Through gritted teeth, he said, “First the LP.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “I promise.”

“It’s mine.” He was corkscrewing himself up. I didn’t trust him to not go off.

Softly, she said, “How…how is it yours?”

“How? You stupid bitch, those are my songs!”

I nodded in fake calm. “You mean—you wrote them?”

“Naw,” he said, “naw, I inspired them.”

“You inspired them.”

“Oh yeah.” He sang into Cinnamon’s ear: “Walk the plank, matey, ’cause your ship has saiiiiiiiled!—that’s your song. About me—isn’t it, sister? That’s me you were talking about, me they’re making fun of. Admit it.”

The white pallor of death warmed over her, all gravity. But she was no damsel in distress—she simply would not cave to fear.

“Benji,” she said again, her voice reaching, resonating with the desire to soothe. “I can’t turn back the clock.” And then, with great tenderness. “We…we don’t have that anymore, that time—it’s gone.”

“But I’m stuck!”

“I understand,” she said. “I really do.”

He pressed the gun. “Stuck!”

“But what could I give you, Ben?” she said. “What could I say that would stop the pain?”

“The truth! And nothing but.”

“Okay. What truth?”

“That you told them to replace me. You set me up for the kill.” He was crying now, she wasn’t—but he had the gun. She considered his words, her lower lip almost trembled.

“No,” she said carefully. “It wasn’t like that, I—”

“You angled. To get me out.”

“No, Benji, I—”

“You told them to dump me…in the worst possible way—”

“No, I—”

“Don’t lie. Your mother spilled the whole thing.”

“My mother?”

“Yeah, your mother. My bitch. She said you did it. No one else. You told them, you made it happen, admit it!”

Our eyes met—mine and Cinnamon’s, then mine and Appelfeld’s. Cinnamon, with a gun to her head, was utterly still now, held by some secret inner force, like she knew I knew: this was the final dead end—the inevitable.

And then she closed her eyes.

“I admit it,” she said somberly. “I…admit it.”

“You told them…to oust me.”

She breathed deep. “I told them.”

“In the worst possible way.”

Something twitched in her without movement, a last piece of resistance, but she snuffed it.

“Yes. I told them. To let you go. And to make it final.”

“Why?”

“To spare you.”

“Spare me?”

“Yes, my…my mother, she—she said to…cut ties. She said it was merciful. She—”