Queenpin by Megan Abbott

nothing. Then, as his arm turned, I spotted the flash of a blade under his shirt cuff. So he was dumb but not that dumb. He’d been ready for something, someone. But who did he think he was dealing with that a knife was going to save him?
    “You’re going to shoot me because she’s a liar and a tramp,” he suddenly barked, nodding toward me, his face greenish, gleaming with fear. “How’s that work?”
    It was a mistake. He couldn’t know it, but it was a mistake. I saw the heat rise back up in her. It was visible. He couldn’t have known, but there it was.
    “You think you can talk that way, think you can manhandle my girl, knock her around, put the scare in her, beat her until she ponies up for you? Bruise her fine flesh?” Her chignon came loose, that satiny auburn hair tumbling. “Well, that’s my flesh you’re marking, little boy.”
    “Manhandle? Pony up?” He looked over at me, then back at her. “Is that what she told you—”
    “He’s got a knife,” I blurted out, before he could go on.
    Sure, I did. Who’d turned me out? She’d take me with her to the end, not just to the nearest strip of silk. Besides, how did I know that gun wouldn’t turn on me?
    Before he could speak, I heard a strange wail come from her and saw the silver-gloved fingers squeeze and the two shots in fast succession.
    They felt like the loudest noises I’d ever heard, booming in my ears.
    I looked over at him and there was a quick, hot splatter of blood from his face. No, his jaw. She’d hit him in the jaw. He began to lean forward and I saw the other shot had gotten him in the gut, but barely.
    Had she tried to kill him and missed? At just ten feet away?
    He started lurching toward her, hand under his chin, flaps of skin and muscle hanging from where his lower jaw had been.
    In spite of everything, his eyes were shining and I thought I could see the corners of his mouth rising, like he was smiling at his luck. Like he would have been smiling if he could have, if his smile hadn’t been half torn away. Maybe under all the pulp, he was smiling.
    Either way, he was going for the gun and everything went so fast and the next thing I knew they were intertwined, he was grabbing her legs as he collapsed, and the gun went flying, landed in the far corner of the room, then slid across the bare floor and into the bedroom.
    “Get it. Get the goddamned gun,” she was growling as he writhed on the floor, clinging at her, dragging her down.
    I saw the knife slip from his sleeve, saw its flash. He couldn’t reach for it, she was on him, the heel of her hand wedged in his gut wound, twisting. But I wanted that knife. I didn’t want that knife in anyone else’s hands.
    Dropping to my knees, I made a lunge for it as it lay several inches from Vic’s shaking fingertips.
    I meant only to take it out of both of their grasps. That was all I wanted. To get it out of reach. But before I knew what I was doing I was looking at his outstretched hand, still reaching for it as he wrestled with her. His hand was wriggling and I saw his eyes dart over toward me, asking me something, asking me for something. And then. And then.
    I raised the knife and plunged it down through the center of his hand and into the wooden floor. The sound he made was not a cry or a shout but a sad little wheeze, soft and despondent,
    Rising to my feet, I scrambled across the room for the gun. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I was going to get it.
    It was on the floor of the bedroom and a bullet had popped out and rolled. I grabbed that too, shoving it back in the chamber as I ran back into the living room.
    I couldn’t have been gone more than ten seconds, five maybe.
    But the wrestling match had ended. She was on top of him, legs astride. I saw the knife standing up, wedged into the floor, pinning his hand down, and she had the letter opener out. It was out and
    raised above her head.
    “I have the gun. I have the gun,” I shouted.
    Her head