Page 128 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

“Nick, I can’t—” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Was this a test? Was he doing what he always did, gauging her loyalty? “I love you.”

“Then choose me.”

“I—you know you’re everything to me. I’ve given up—” She held out her arms, indicating the world, because there was nothing left that she had not abandoned for him. Her father. Jasper. Her life. Her music. “Please, don’t make me choose. He’s dying.”

Nick stared at her, icy cold.

Jane felt a wail come out of her mouth. She knew how Nick looked when he was finished with a person. Six years of her life, her heart, her love, was evaporating in front of her eyes. How could he so easily throw it all away? “Nicky, please—”

“Andrew’s impending death should make your choice easy. A few more hours with a dying man or the rest of your life with me.” He waited. “Choose.”

“Nick—” Another sob cut her off. She felt like she was dying. He couldn’t leave her. Not now. “It’s not just a few more hours. It’s hours of terror, or—” Jane couldn’t think about what Andrew would go through if he was abandoned. “You can’t mean this. I know you’re just testing me. I love you. Of course I love you. I told you I’m with you.”

Nick reached for the door.

“Please!” Jane grabbed him by the front of his shirt. He turned away his head when she tried to kiss him. Jane pressed her face to his chest. She was crying so hard that she could barely speak. “Please, Nicky. Please don’t make me choose. You know that I can’t live without you. I’m nothing without you. Please!”

“Then you’ll go with me?”

She looked up at him. She had cried so hard for so long that her eyelids felt like barbed wire.

“I need you to say it, Jane. I need to hear your choice.”

“I c-can’t—” she stuttered out the word. “Nick, I can’t—”

“You can’t choose?”

“No.” The realization almost stopped her heart. “I can’t leave him.”

Nick’s face gave nothing away.

“I—” Jane could barely swallow. Her mouth had gone dry. She was terrified, but she knew that what she was doing was right. “I will not let my brother die alone.”

“All right.” Nick reached for the door again, but then something changed his mind.

For just a moment, she thought that he was going to tell her it was okay.

But he didn’t.

His hands shot out. He shoved Jane across the room. Her head whipped back, broke the glass out of the window.

She was dumbstruck. She felt the back of her head, expecting to find blood. “Why did—”

Nick punched her in the stomach.

Jane collapsed to her knees. Bile erupted from her mouth. She tasted blood. Her stomach spasmed so hard that she doubled over, her forehead touching the floor.

Nick grabbed her hair, jerked her head back up. He was kneeling in front of her. “What did you think would happen after we did this, Janey, that we would run off to a little flat in Switzerland and raise our baby?”

The baby—

“Look at me.” His fingers wrapped around her neck. He shook her like a doll. “Were you stupid enough to think I’d let you keep it? That I’d turn into some fat old man who reads the Sunday paper while you do the dishes and we talk about Junior’s class project?”

Jane couldn’t breathe. Her fingernails dug into his wrists. He was choking her.

“Don’t you understand that I know everything about you, Jinx? We’ve never been whole people. We only make sense when we’re together.” He tightened his grip with both hands. “Nothing can come between us. Not a whining baby. Not your dying brother. Nothing. Do you hear me?”

She clawed at him, desperate for air. He banged her head against the wall.

“I’ll kill you before I let you leave me.” He looked her in the eye, and Jane knew that this time, Nick was telling the truth. “You belong to me, Jinx Queller. If you ever try to leave me, I will scorch the earth to get you back. Do you understand?” He shook her again. “Do you?”

His hands were too tight. Jane felt a darkness edging around her vision. Her lungs shuddered. Her tongue would not stay inside of her mouth.

“Look at me.” Nick’s face was glowing with sweat. His eyes were on fire. He was smiling his usual self-satisfied grin. “How does it feel to suffocate, darling? Is it everything you imagined?”

Her eyelids started to flutter. For the first time in days, Jane’s vision was clear. There were no more tears left.

Nick had taken them away, just like he had taken everything else.