Supermarket - Bobby Hall Page 0,84

had created, you grew stronger. It was harder and harder to bring you back . . . here. To the supermarket. So rather than lose you again, I’ll just end the game when I want. It’s really a power thing, hahahaha!”

“Flynn!” Mia shouted.

“Mia?” I yelled down the aisle.

“Flynn! Let me go!”

I didn’t understand. “What?!”

“Flynn, please,” she begged, her crying intensifying. “Please let me go!”

“Think about it, you fucking idiot,” Frank expelled. “Who do you think is holding the gun right now?!”

And in that moment, my world collapsed. In that instant, it was like I was sucked into Frank’s body—I could see everything from his point of view. The hand gripping Mia’s neck and the gun pointed at her head, and down the aisle, like an out-of-body experience, I could see . . . myself.

I was standing there, holding a gun pointed directly at . . . me. Or, rather, Frank.

I was Frank. I was holding Mia and yet . . . I couldn’t do anything about it. I wasn’t in control, Frank was.

And with that, I snapped back into the body at the other end of the aisle—only now I knew I wasn’t in my body at all. I was a physical projection. There was only really one gun, and it wasn’t in my hand now. It was in Frank’s, and it was pointed at Mia’s head.

There was only really one person holding her, and it was the man ten yards in front of me.

And it was me.

“Mia, I know this is hard to understand, but it will be okay!” I said to her.

“No, it won’t,” Frank said.

“Shut the hell up, man!” I said, desperately looking around. Trying to think of something, anything . . .

And then I realized what aisle we were in. The cereal aisle.

“Well, it looks like it’s about time to die, little lady,” Frank said, cocking the hammer of the gun. “Though technically, this will be a murder-suicide.” He laughed.

“Mia! Do you see which aisle we’re in?” I screamed.

“What the hell are you talking about?!” she asked, looking so scared and confused. I couldn’t see the tears because water was everywhere, but I knew they were there.

“Mia . . . we’re surrounded by cereal!”

She looked around and then at me. I motioned to the pile of boxes on the floor beside her. They were Cap’n Crunch. She looked back at me, shaking her head slightly. As if she understood.

“Alllllright! Enough of this shit. Say good-bye, honey,” Frank told her. Just as he squeezed the trigger, Mia yelled . . .

“Crunch time!” she screamed, raising her right knee high to her chest.

“What the hell?” said Frank, just as the heel of her combat boot came slamming down, breaking his toes.

I knew his toes were broken, because my toes were broken.

“Aaaahrrgghh. What the fuck!” Frank screamed. Furious, he pistol-whipped Mia—she fell to the floor, hand covering the cut above her right eye. I took that second to quickly run toward him.

“You son of a bitch!” I screamed, ready to destroy him. I leaped and tackled him.

We both fell to the ground, the gun skidding across the supermarket floor.

My tooth chipped on the tile floor. In that moment, the water stopped pouring. Frank and I looked at each other for a millisecond before dashing for the gun on our hands and knees.

It was a battle of strength, the two of us pulling and clawing at each other to reach the gun. Frank pulled my hair, exposing my face. He punched me over and over, breaking my nose and splitting my lip from the force of knuckles colliding, forcing the tissue to rip on my jagged tooth. Frank tried to make his way to the gun, but I grabbed his ankle at the last minute and tripped him.

We were both on the ground yet again.

“Motherfucker!” he yelled. I was on my stomach, trying to get to my feet, when he kicked me in the face. The blow forced me back to the ground. Quickly, Frank got on top of me, sitting on my back with all his weight. He picked up my head and slammed it into the solid floor over and over and over again. Tissue from my left eyebrow was completely exposed, spewing violent amounts of blood onto the floor.

“Don’t!” said Frank, then slammed my head again. “Fuck!” He slammed it again, and my consciousness started fading. “With!” I began to black out. “Me!”

Frank laid the final blow. Barely hanging on, I could make out Frank walking over