Page 181 of Wicked Refusal

Desya’s body tilts sideways. He crashes into the concrete, blood spurting from his nose and mouth. His eyepatch slides off, revealing the black hole where his right eye once was.

“Why?” He’s panting on the ground, kneeling with a fist planted on the concrete, exhausted. “Why didn’t you kill me, Yul?”

I’ve asked myself that a lot. Tried to figure it out ever since Desya crawled out of his watery grave. Why didn’t I just shoot him? Why didn’t I choose a safer method? Why didn’t I skip the poetic justice and do it myself?

Why didn’t I watch the light go out from his eyes?

“Because I didn’t want to.” The truth slips out of its own accord. “You were my friend, and you were guilty, but I still didn’t want to lose you.”

Something flickers across his face. Something almost human. “I didn’t want to lose you, either.”

“I know.”

“That’s why I killed them. Because they were gonna take you away from me.”

I clench my fists. It doesn’t matter what the truth was—Desya has made this one his truth for twenty years. If I want to understand his reasons, then nothing else counts.

“I know.”

“But then you found out.” He chokes those words out like it burns. Like they’re hot coals, stuck in his throat for two decades. “Why didn’t you just kill me? Why didn’t you just forgive me?”

Because I couldn’t do either thing. Because I wasn’t strong enough.

Because I was young, and I was hurt, and you were my last friend in the world.

I don’t say any of that. There’s no point. I’m not that boy anymore. That boy drowned with Desya. That night, we were both swallowed by the water.

But then we came back. Both of us, ghosts of who we were. If left unchecked, I would have ended up just like him: a specter with nothing to live for, haunted by a past of his own making.

Because the truth is, I should have seen it coming. Should have known there was something wrong with Desya. Should have paid more attention to him, talked to him, been hisfriend.

Most of all, I should have listened.

But I didn’t.

And now, it’s too late to save him.

I think of the family I lost. The family I can’t bring back, no matter how much blood I shed.

Then I think of the family I have now. A family who needs my protection—who needsme.

Slowly, I pull out my gun.

Desya lets out a quiet exhale. “Are you finally gonna do it? Avenge your family?”

“No.” I press the gun to Desya’s forehead. “This isn’t revenge.”

He doesn’t resist. Doesn’t make a single move to fight me off. Just looks up at me with his single brown eye and rasps, “Then what?”

It shouldn’t be a simple question, but it is.

Because Desya has been waiting for one thing only. He crawled out of that river and spent twenty years haunted by what he did just to get one thing from me. The one thing I never thought I could give him.

The one thing I’m giving him now.

“Mercy.”

It’s a split second. A fraction of an emotion, one instant before nothingness.