Steeling myself, I broke open the door to the bathroom and gagged at the sight. Through all the years I had spent in Vlad’s outfit, I had never seen a dead body until that day. Beside the base of the tub where Rosie lay was my gun, a Colt M1911 that used to make me feel ten feet tall, dwarfing me to mere inches. I should have never left a firearm in the apartment with him. I should have read the writing on the wall. I should have protected him. I should have protected Cal. I should have told them to leave, set them free. I should have known everything would come crashing down because hope was a son of a bitch and hoping things would get better was a surefire way to make them worse. Moving further into the room, I noticed a note on the counter and sighed at the words scrawled across the paper:

I’m sorry I made a mess.

Unable to stop my stomach from churning and flipping, I crouched over the toilet and emptied my guts into the bowl. There was too much to take care of, too much to do. Most importantly, I had to figure out a way to make sense of the horrific tragedy for the mess of a man in the other room. I was overwhelmed and instead of attempting to sort it out, I dropped to my knees and vomited again. It was awful to realize how much you valued a person’s life only after he took it away from you.

A familiar melody floated into my mind as I recalled the first time I saw Rosie and lived the last:

The night was splendid. And the melody seemed to say, "Summer will pass away, take your happiness while you may." There 'neath the light of the moon, we sang a love song that ended too soon. The moon descended, and I found with the break of dawn, you and the song had gone.

Gone.

28

December 1936