Spencer didn’t say anything, and my body went cold. Would I never be safe from him?

“But Amaya didn’t come to the reunion, of course. I was there instead. Open and ready to be your next victim.” She snorted. “The thing you should have learned along the way, Spence, is that I’ll never be a victim. And definitely not a victim to a two-faced, abusive pedophile asshole like you.”

“Kaavi, please, you have to—oh my god!”

It was only when I heard the panic in his voice that I saw it, glinting in Kaavi’s hand. A gun.

Where the hell did she get that from? Mahesh said it was near impossible to get one in Sri Lanka.

“Look, I need you to just shut the fuck up and—”

Kaavi was interrupted as the door burst open once again.

It was the bald man I’d seen outside her house on the day of the cocktail party.

“What the hell is going on here? You asked me to meet you and I—”

“Mr. Ananda. Fucking finally.”

Bang!

The shot was so loud my hands reached out on their own to shield my ears. But I couldn’t close my eyes.

Mr. Ananda’s face was frozen as he collapsed, first onto his knees, and then backward onto the ground.

Kaavi stood over him, her eyes wide, breathing hard. She was shaking like a leaf.

She turned over to look at me, panic starting to etch itself onto her face, when suddenly she was falling also. Using what just happened with Mr. Ananda as a diversion, Spencer had managed to get onto his knees and tackled her to the ground.

“You stupid bitch.” His voice was devoid of all the softness and weeping from earlier. “You think you can just get away with this bullshit?” He was wrestling with her now, trying to reach for her gun.

“Amaya!” Kaavi called out, desperate.

She didn’t need to tell me twice. I launched myself onto both of them and strained to get a grasp on the gun myself. Everything became a blur. I was only vaguely aware of a shoulder against my neck. A knee in my back. An elbow to my face. And then finally, my fingers brushed against something cold. I reached for it with everything I had. It was almost out of my grasp, but then it was between my fingers.

And I felt Spencer on top of me, like he had been so many times before. He was trying to pin me down, his face contorted in the same way that still gave me nightmares.

“You’re pathetic,” he heaved.

I closed my eyes. My fingers pulled the trigger.

Bang!

I don’t know if his eyes actually went wide with the realization that I killed him, but that’s my last memory of Spencer.

“I’m. Not. Pathetic.” I gasped, heaving him off me. “I am strong. I am brave. And I’m fed up with your bullshit.”

Kaavi was pulling me to my feet but I barely noticed. I aimed a kick at Spencer’s body. It hardly did a thing, but it finally felt like a release. The monster was dead. The monster was dead because I killed it.