Genevieve

Christof kisses my hair, just as the room erupts into gunshots.

“Don’t move,” he says, and then all at once there is chaos; there are men shouting and red, bright blood beginning to streak the walls and tablecloth and floor and Daddy’s on the ground next to me and he’s not moving. I’m too dumbstruck to say or do anything; I can’t hear a thing through the BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG screaming through the air and echoing off the walls around us and hammering into my ears. Christof has me curled against him so that I can’t see who’s shooting or anything that’s happening above table level and all I can think is Oh my God oh my God oh my God do something Genevieve you need to do something God

There’s blood on the floor. There’s blood everywhere. Somebody’s screaming, and the sound is shrill and horrible and suddenly I realize it’s Gina’s voice. Wait, Jesus Christ, it’s Gina’s voice, and when I turn my head to where she was sitting I see her splayed belly-down against the table and there is a pool of brilliant red growing beneath her stomach and splatters of it on her hands and face. She’s frozen, partially from terror but mostly from the shock of the bullet now lodged in her abdomen, and with her cheek pressed tight against the tablecloth she chokes out something horrible and strained and what I can make out through the sounds of gunshots are the words “Genevieve… He’s with them... Run!”

My mind is god knows where, but somehow and by some primal instinct I’m getting to my feet and I’m reaching toward her. I’m looking around me at the bodies and the carnage and the red, and I’m clawing at Christof’s face and neck and kicking the heels of my stilettos into his shins but he just won’t let go, he only wraps his arms around my waist and presses me tighter into his chest. All the while I’m shouting at the top of my lungs and what I’m saying is: Gina, get up, oh my god Gina we have to get out of here but she doesn’t register my voice, she doesn’t even see me, she just keeps staring at the men with the guns and the red splatters on the tablecloth and then at Daddy, who is twitching helplessly amid a pool of his own thick, black blood.

To my own surprise, I manage to land a sharp kick to Christof’s inner thigh, and the force of it is enough for him to lose his grip on me, and at once I am scrambling out of his grasp and towards the doors. I make it halfway there, sobbing and screaming like a banshee, until I feel hands wrapping around me, this time around my neck and then suddenly something white and soft and strong-smelling is being pressed against my nose and mouth. I’m struggling violently against his grip and biting at the hand holding the cloth but I’m getting weaker, I’m losing control of my legs and everything around me is blurring at the edges and fading and I