It took them fifteen minutes to come up.

The stillness of the room was daunting. I could feel an almost living pulse in the air—or perhaps it was just my heart beating out of my chest. I positioned myself such that a long couch came between me and Zayn. This, after several adjustments and minute twists of the torso, left me sitting on an overturned laundry basket in the shadows of the door. Yet in the corner of my vision a couple of black-clad legs stuck out from behind the sofa, seeming to grow bigger by the second.

The gun wouldn’t leave my hands, my fingers refusing to uncurl from where they wrapped around the grip in pale digits. My index finger still dusted the trigger, as if anticipating the next time I would have to pull it.

I waited.

I did not hear their arrival, in either the sound of their voices or the patter of their running feet. Sound was starting to filter through my ears, assuring me that said ears—more importantly, the left—still functioned, yet the words did not seem to hold any meaning. It was too soon for that.

When the door burst open and Alex rushed in, he did not see me at first. The door opened directly to where Zayn lay before the dressing table—the first thing my fiancé saw when he opened the door to my room on our wedding day was the body of the man I had murdered. He didn’t look at it for long.

His head twisted this way and that, eyes worried and lips thin. His movements were almost jerky, as if he couldn’t concern himself with grace anymore. I could see my name on his lips. Tasha and Christopher spilled inside behind him, like the faithful cavalry. I hoped the girls were safe with Granny.

He found me soon enough, sitting on my basket in the corner, in my torn and bloody wedding finery with a gun clasped in my hands. My eyes were only for him. I couldn’t read the expression on his face.

He raised a hand, calming, as if approaching a wild animal. I watched with interest as he stepped closer and sank to the floor. His hand, light as a feather, touched my frozen fingers. “Zara,” he said, and this time I heard him, albeit through a loud whine that left me thinking of static on a radio. “Zara, give me the gun, love. Everything is alright now. You’re bleeding. Let me take care of this.”

I looked down to where his fingers gently probed mine, trying to make them loosen. He pulled them apart and my death-grip broke. My limp hands fell in my lap as he collected the weapon and flicked it across the floor in one smooth motion. I watched it slide under a table.

“Zara,” he said again. His looked pale, scared. There was a slight tremor in his hands. His nostrils flared. “Zara, you are okay now. I am so sorry, Zara.”  

My brow furrowed. He placed a hand on my shoulder, fingers brushing my neck. His touch was faint, as if he was afraid I would turn away. But I was having none of that.

I slid off the basket and threw my arms around him, burying my face in his suit jacket. He froze for a moment, then pulled me to him with such strength I felt it in my bones. He settled on the floor and drew me onto his lap, settling his face in the crook of my neck—on the safe side. His shoulders shook and chest heaved, breath coming in ragged gasps.

“Oh, Zara…” he said, fingers moulding to my back in a grip that would have hurt in any situation but this. The pain in my neck was finally starting to register.

I pulled a hand free to caress his hair. “It’s okay,” I said. My voice sounded thin and plaintive in my ears. “Everything is fine.”

I cannot say for how long we sat there, wrapped in such an embrace. Time did not mean much in our little bubble, only the touch of the other, only knowing that we existed and were alright. Nothing else mattered.

Christopher cleared his throat, making me look up. Alex’s back was to him but, on feeling me move, he gave me one last fierce squeeze before letting go. He helped me to my feet and turned to his brother, keeping me glued to his chest. I wasn’t complaining.

“Is he dead?” was all he asked.

Christopher was standing by the couch, Tasha hovering like a worried breath by his elbow. On catching my eye she took a step forward, glanced at Alex’s face, and stopped. She bit her lip.

“I would think so,” Chris said, casting another fleeting glance at the corpse. “He’s missing half his head.” He gave me a once over. “She needs a doctor.”

Tasha bit her lip harder. A hesitant step brought her yet forward. Then she looked at my neck again, her head, and ran out the door.

“Alex,” Christopher said. He was tearing a piece of cloth into strips. “You need to let her go now. She’s been shot.”

It took him a moment—it took us a moment—but Christopher was right. No matter how much I hated stepping away, I needed attention, and Alexander understood is as well as anybody.

Soon I was sitting on the laundry basket again, holding a strip of cloth to my neck. It didn’t help much with the pain—a pain that had grown to cover my whole neck and half my face and shoulders in a blanket of mind numbing anguish. A pronounced throbbing in my chest and thigh alerted me to other injuries begging consideration. Alexander sat at my feet, holding my hands and looking at my face with an expression of utter helplessness. I tried to smile.

By the time Charles and Jenny—some of our more useful and honoured guests—made it upstairs to the room, with Tasha dogging their steps, Christopher had already left to see what he could do about clearing Zayn’s body. He was none too gentle when dragging said body to a corner; the bloody red carpet, where it had lain, looked nauseatingly innocent.

The doctor didn’t turn a hair on seeing the scene that greeted him. He clucked his tongue when he examined my wound. “This will need stitches,” he said. “You are lucky to have missed a major injury, my girl.” He tilted my head further to the right. “And I am glad you are okay,” he added softly.

I nodded.

“This to happen on your wedding day,” Jenny said, shaking her head. Her expression hardened. “I am glad he is dead.”

“Jenny,” Charles cautioned, glancing at me as if he thought I would balk. On seeing no reaction, his brow furrowed. I pulled my hands away and stood up.

As I sidestepped the kneeling doctor, having to lift my torn skirts off the ground to avoid tripping, the others watched me with eyes as sharp as razors; waiting for a sign, a whisper of my real feelings—waiting for me to flip.

“Isn’t it bad for the groom to see the wedding dress before the wedding?” I asked. The words—oh-so-normal—seemed to slide heavily into the air, drifting sluggishly towards that corner where a recently breathing man lay with his head blown to bits.

There was silence. Jenny coughed. Alexander, his beautiful blue-green eyes wide, seemed at a loss for words. He tried to come to me but Tasha was already one step ahead.

Grabbing my hands in hers, she squeezed my fingers lightly. “Zara,” she said. “We need to get you to the hospital.” She glanced at the cloth I held to my neck. “You need stitches. We will take care of everything—”

I looked back, as calm as ever. “We are not cancelling the wedding.”

Alexander was going progressively paler. The fear in his expression made my stomach curdle.

“You are in shock,” Tasha said. She placed a hand on my cheek. “That is understandable. The wedding is no concern right now. Come on”—she grasped my elbow in an attempt to turn me—“let’s go outside.”

I pulled out of her grip and took a step back. “Am I in shock?” I asked the doctor, forcing my voice to sound as clear as a bell. “Tell me, Charles. You are a doctor. Am I in shock?”

Charles was frowning harder than ever. He shared a glance with his wife. Jenny shrugged her shoulders, as if to say, Don’t look at me. I am as confused as you. Taking a breath, eyes now firm, he motioned for Tasha to step aside, picking up my hands in her stead. Alex drifted forward, running frustrated fingers through his hair.

The doctor ran his thumbs over the backs of my hands. He took my pulse. Pulling my face straight, breaking my eye contact with Alex for a non-appreciated moment, he first looked at my right eye and then my left. He touched my cheek, my forehead, even the unharmed side of my neck. Then he let go and stepped back.

“You—” He coughed. “You are not in shock.” He looked shocked himself.

I shook my head. “No, I am not. I told you, I am completely fine.”

Alex had had enough. He came to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, twisting me so he could stare at my face. His eyes were extra bright. “Zara,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, “you killed a man.”

I took a deep breath. “I know.”

He didn’t say anything; he couldn’t. Then he squashed me to his chest again, a hand firm on the back of my head. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, frustration evident in every word. “I don’t know what to do.”

I gave him a second to vent whatever he had to vent. Then I pushed him away and grabbed his face roughly. “Alex,” I said, voice stiff and hard. “Alex, look at me.”

He was looking alright. My push had surprised him. When I was sure his attention was focused entirely on me, I said, “Alexander, I am perfectly fine.”

“Bu—“

“No, listen. Don’t you know this feeling, Alex? Don’t you?” I rose on my tiptoes. His head was tilted down so our faces were only an inch away. “You have been here before,” I whispered. “Did you go into shock when you killed them? No, you didn’t. Because they deserved it.”

He didn’t seem convinced. “It was not the right thing to do,” I said, stroking his pale cheek. I kept my voice soft. This was no business to anyone else. “It was against the law and everything right. But we are not normal people, you and I. We are messed up, and it shows. It will show. We suffered in silence, and then we did what we had to do when the opportunity arose. That’s all this is. And if you didn’t go in shock, I don’t plan on doing it either. I am not weak.”

He blinked. “I didn’t want to do it,” he whispered. His words broke. “I only wanted to scare them. But they didn’t even remember her! They didn’t—”

“I know.” I wanted to do it, I thought. I killed Zayn when I could have let him go. I killed him knowing he had to die for everything he had done. I only smiled.

He sighed, closing his eyes briefly to recollect his scattered composure. Then he placed a hand over mine. “We will get better. We will go to a psychiatrist. We will work on this.”

I nodded. “Sure we will. If that’s what you want. I don’t work well with shrinks, I must tell you.”

“I will be there with you. We will do this together.”

I rested my brow on his chest. “If it makes you happy. But first, we have to get married.” I pulled out of his embrace and turned to the rest of the room’s assorted company. “Tasha, you need to fix me.”

Charles and Jenny looked ill at ease. The doctor had a supporting arm around his wife, as if holding her up against this torrent of inexplicable going-ons. Tasha was leaning against the closed door, her eyes on us. On hearing my request she let out a beleaguered sigh. “Why is nothing with you ever easy?”

The question was not proposed in jest or rhetoric. I could see the strain behind her eyes. Her lips were pressed into thin lines and thick furrows marred her brows. She looked defeated.

So, letting go of Alex as gently as I was able—he wasn’t happy—I went to her and gave her a hug too. She didn’t seem glad to cooperate but, my insistence being what it was, consented to having my arms around her. I whispered platonic words of comfort in her ear, saying over and over that I was as well as I could ever be.

“I should have been here with you,” she muttered, digging her nails into my back.

I sighed. “That’s what everybody who wasn’t here thinks. Tasha—” I shook her. “You weren’t here, and there isn’t much you can do about it. Now get yourself together.”

“He started a fire to distract us.”

“And I killed him for that. What more can you ask for?”

On hearing my tone—light and soothing—she finally calmed down. A few seconds more, and she even let me stroke her back and comment on the state of her hair—it didn’t look much different but she insisted it had gotten frizzy in the hubbub and tension.

I pushed her away to look directly into her face. “Are you alright now?” I asked.

She snorted. “What a question to ask at this moment.”

I nodded, satisfied. Then I let her go and clapped my hands, directing my attention to the remaining assembly. “Okay then. All done. Now let’s get me married.”

***

Alex insisted Doctor Williams put my sutures in then and there, when I refused a trip to the hospital. So Charles’ bag was brought from his car, as prompt as ever, and I was fed enough ibuprofens to down an elephant—only three; the doctor refused more.

While we waited for the drug to kick in, Tasha rubbed an ice cube around my wound with one hand and made urgent phone calls with the other, directing Clara to collect my reserve dress and other odds and ends needed to make me look my part again.

The needle didn’t hurt as much as I had thought it would, making me wonder if I was in fact in shock. When the bloody deed was done and Charles put a bandage over the whole mess, I could feel a dull throb in the region, as if my heart had leaped from my chest and come to rest where a chunk of my neck had been.

“You will have a scar. You know that, don’t you?” the doctor asked, tying to sound casual as he surveyed his work.

I ran a hand over the gauze. “One more to add to the collection.”

Tasha had me dressed in the reserve gown—Alex finally figured out why so much of his money had vanished on ‘the dress’—and fixed my hair and makeup in less than an hour, a personal record. There was no way my neck could be left exposed, now that a wide swath of it was wound in bandage, so the scarf was adjusted to cover it all up.

And finally, twice in the same day, I was a radiant and beautiful bride. Who was to know the transition from one to the other would need a cold-blooded murder to help it along?

Alex had refused to leave the room till everything was ready again. The only time he had allowed his absence was to help Christopher carry Zayn’s body out of the room and dump it I knew not where. I was glad for his presence and, when Clara—newly arrived and rallying against the disaster that greeted her—insisted it wasn’t right for the groom to be in the room, even after everything, was secretly ecstatic when he snapped at her.

The ceremony was held in the dining room, now cleared of tables and chairs. The main hall, previously planned for this purpose, now had a wide curve of charred space—adjoining a hall serving as the makeshift backstage. The fire had started there, in a room where the spare chairs were hoarded, so it wasn’t a giant leap to figure how Zayn had gotten in and concocted his distraction.

The wedding was as magical as Alex’s mother could make it from the tatters of our former elegance. The world moved in a whirlwind. The vows were spoken, we were proclaimed married, and the guests cheered. Tasha and Clara had tears in their eyes. Granny looked suspiciously too exuberant, dancing in the arms of a certified hobo-look-alike. Ella had managed to trip over all the guests’ feet and was now busy climbing Howard’s back to reach a hanging balloon. The grimace on his face, as she fisted his hair to climb yet higher, proclaimed marvellously withheld pain. Hannah had vanished under a table the moment everybody stood up for the dance and I did not think she had much left in her to come out.

When the time to leave came, the girls were so excited they could not stand still. Ella alternated between screaming with laughter and crying like a baby, while Hannah twisted from side to side as if she knew not where to run to next. I gave them both a fierce hug and a kiss, promising I would be back in a couple of weeks and getting solemn oaths, in their turn, that they would be on their best behaviour—I doubted it. Granny and Clara gave me a hug each, pecking me on the cheek and asking in hurried whispers if I felt alright. I expressed quick assurances, not wanting them worried over nothing.

“Show him a good time, my girl,” Tasha crooned in my ear. I turned to find her and Christopher standing together, their arms around each other and wide grins on their faces. I could feel the strain behind each smile so I offered an obliging one myself.

“This is where the hard-part starts,” I said.

She gave me the hug she owed, then hurried to tell me where everything was in my bags in the car. I was only half listening, distracted as I was by Christopher and Alexander in heated debate. The former kept pointing to the trunk of the car and back to my now-husband, to which the latter shook his head vehemently and offered some choice words that did not look encouraging or polite. His eyes did everything but spit fire.

Interesting.

Finally, with all the goodbyes done—after smelling Granny’s breath and making sure she had a firm grip on each of my girls—Alexander and I got in the car. As the doors closed, leaving the commotion outside where it belonged, the silence in the interior was a huge relief. I smiled at Alex, hoping for one back. He tried, I am sure of that, but the effort looked half-hearted.

As we made our way out of the estate and down the road, the silence continued to grow deeper and deeper. I languished in it, feeling free and comfortable for the first time in five years. The tension in Alex’s expression was a tangible thing, but it did not affect me. I already knew what the matter was.

“So,” I said. “He’s in the trunk.”

Alexander made a noise in his throat I fail to describe. I had to laugh.

“Come on. Did you not think I would figure it out? Your face tells everything.”

“Just because we are married does not mean you can assume everything, Zara.” His words were clipped.

“But I can try, can’t I?” I went ahead and put my feet on the dashboard. The burgeoning skirts of my wedding dress provided an excellent cushion. “Besides, give me credit when I am right, husband.” Then I snorted. “Aaand…” I said, “you’re angry with Christopher. Don’t take it out on me.”

He didn’t say anything. I wasn’t letting it go.

“How did you not figure out what he was going to do?” I asked. “You helped him take the body out.”

He remained silent for a moment more. Then he sighed. “I only took it as far as the hall. His men were there to help him take it outside. I didn’t want them to come in the room.”

I cocked my head. “Fair enough. Did he tell you why he did it?”

I could feel the anger roll off him in waves. “He said if anyone had seen a car suddenly leave the house, in the middle of everything, with suspicious looking people at the wheel, their interest could have made the story come out. What better way to dispose off a body at a wedding than to put it in the wedding car with the bride and groom? They could take it anywhere and dump it.”

“But what if somebody followed us?”

“I am watching for that.” He looked in the rear-view mirror to prove his point. “We are clear. Though why anyone would do that, I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be safe.” I turned the ring on my finger. “Wouldn’t it have been better if one of his men had taken it when the other guests leave? They could have gotten lost in the crowd.”

He huffed.

We descended into silence. The night flew by outside the windows, a steady stream of black, making me think of deep, deep tunnels. It was strangely calming.

“He did it because of me, didn’t he?” I asked after sufficient time had elapsed.

Silence.

“He wants to make sure I am fine. He wants to make sure I have come to terms with what I have done. He wants to see if I will see this through. He is pushing me to see if I will trip and fall.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Alexander growled. “I will take care of this. And then I will kill my brother.”

I smiled. “Alex, you don’t need to worry. I will not fail him. Like I said, I really am fine. In fact, I haven’t been better.”

He slammed his fist on the steering wheel, making me jump. “He shouldn’t have done this!” he said—loudly. “I trusted him!”

“Then trust him some more,” I advised, fighting to stay calm. “He did what he thought was right. He’s a military man. He sees things in terms of what gets a result. Let him conduct this little experiment. He probably thinks he’s doing you a favour, showing you if your wife has finally snapped or not.”

“Don’t say that,” he warned, taking a second to look away from the windscreen to glare at me. “Don’t say anything like that. You are fine.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s what I keep telling you! I am fine. And you need to forget about what Christopher did. We still need to find a way to get rid of this body.”

I could see his lips thin in the glow from the dashboard. “We will dump it in the river.”

I gave it some thought, then offered my opinion: “How cliché.”

When we stopped, about two hours later, it was at the side of a deserted side road. Alex had driven as far as he could, turning many times onto service roads and by-alleys to shake off any tail we might have had.

“You stay in the car,” he said, popping the trunk and exiting said vehicle.

“Okay,” I said, opening my door and stepping out too.

He scowled at me across the roof. I scowled back.

As we made our way to the trunk, I picked out the railing of the river-walk on our left. There were no streetlights here, in the middle of nowhere, so the half-moon hanging low in the sky provided the only illumination. The road was as straight as a ruler, making it easy to see if a car was coming either way. The brick embankment by the side was chipped and broken, a large crack at one place showing the inky river beyond.

Alexander lifted the trunk, grimacing as the leather body bag came into view. Christopher had been considerate enough to already tie a bowling ball to its feet.

We stared at the man accompanying us on our wedding night.

“Are you alright?” Alex asked.

I breathed through my nose. “It doesn’t smell.”

I grabbed it by the feet, placing the bowling pin on his legs so it wouldn’t hang down. Alex grabbed it by the shoulders. And thus, hobbling and puffing, we half carried, half dragged it to the wall. Alex hoisted the shoulders on to the railing, holding them in place and allowing me to push the legs. The body slid forward, inch by inch. Alexander let go and came to my assistance when the railing reached the small of its back. Zayn lay at an extreme curve, his torso hanging down and his legs straining to follow. With one last shove and a mighty splash, the black bag disappeared over the edge, dissolving into the pitch-black river.

The silence that followed was one of tangible disbelief.

Alex reached for my hand and twisted me away from the water. “Your hands are cold,” he whispered, kissing my fingers and looking down at me in earnest. Waiting for me to pop.

I took a deep breath of the fetid air. “Maybe the shock is catching up.”

He pulled me closer, resting my head on his chest. “It’s over,” he said, almost as if he wanted to assure himself. “It’s all over.”

I burrowed my face deeper into his jacket. “It’s over.”

And it was. The past had drowned in itself. I had pushed it over the edge with my own two hands, just as I had pulled the trigger that ended its life. It couldn’t loom in every shadow anymore, couldn’t crouch behind every dark breath.

It was over

We got into the car, still not saying a word. But this silence wasn’t strained with suppressed emotions and anger. This was a liberating silence, the kind felt before the break of dawn, when the world is just stretching its tired limbs and waiting for the first ray of the sun. The purr of the starting engine was a companion to the silence, lending it a vibration of life and fresh possibility. The moonlight on the hood was a stream of silver hope, an embodiment of the days to come and a reminder of the days that were no more.

I reached for Alex’s hand on the gear shift. Our fingers entwined. I looked at my future in his eyes and wondered how the fates had woven our tale. I smiled, seeing it echo on his face. And then I laughed; because it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The tale was told and we had survived to see it end. The fates had turned and turned, and we had come on top at every twist. And now the wheel was obliged to rest, for a moment.

Because it was over.