And I need to know if the ending is okay because I liked it but I'm not sure if it works right. Part one is here: topic65928.html~peanut~
There is a gun and a knife in front of them. They lay spread out on the grass, gleaming in the light from the two flash lights that are gripped tightly in Rae and Ember’s hands. They are not allowed to break these, Jackson’s orders.
Rae has a watch, a digital one with a green back-light. Ember can see it glowing on her wrist, the digits flashing 12:34. It is time to go. The family should be asleep by now, the drunken boy should still be hung over and the baby shouldn’t cry for a few more hours. Ember looks toward the house and wonders why Jackson has to get them to do his dirty work.
“So we go in through that side window,” Rae explains picking the knife off the ground and wiping it on her shirt. She polishes it until it shines then holds it, white knuckled, in her left hand. She is ready to go but Ember is not. She eyes the gun that still lies on the ground. “Should be easy enough to break, just pound it with the gun a few times,” she is so nonchalant about all of this. But of course she isn’t the one about to go shoot an entire family.
“I need to smoke first.” Ember says, nudging the gun with her foot. She doesn’t want to pick it up, let alone use it but she has to. Rae shrugs and looks back toward the house, clicking off her flashlight. The rubber button sticks and she curses. Looks like it’s gonna have to stay on. Ember smiles to herself as she lights her cigarette, it would suck if some one woke up; Rae would be hard to miss. Slowly the ash falls until there is nothing but a stub of Ember’s cigarette. She drops into on the ground and grinds it into the grass with the toe of her shoe.
“Finally. Jeez, Em, I don’t think I’ve ever seen some one take so long to smoke.” Rae teases. She picks up the gun and hands it to Ember, who reluctantly takes it. It is heavy, her fingers wrap around it and she has to try hard to hold it up. She lets it dangle by her side; she’ll have plenty of time to hold it up once they are in.
Rae leads the way to the house. The window she pointed out earlier is about three feet from the ground. Through the dark glass they can see the lay out of a living room when they shine in their flash lights. It is cluttered with boxes and junk. Knickknacks fill shelves on both sides of the television that is old fashioned and tiny. They will have to be careful not to bump into anything or move anything or it will wake up every one.
But Rae doesn’t seem as concerned with being quiet. She asks to see Ember’s gun. Ember hands it to her slowly, afraid she is going to shoot through the glass and ruin everything before it even starts. Rae lifts the gun to the middle of the window, the handle pointed toward the glass instead of the barrel. The metal connects with the pane of glass and it spider webs. She has to hit it twice before it breaks.
When it shatters, Ember clicks off her light, sure that that was enough to wake up the whole house. But no one makes a sound inside. Rae hands Ember the gun back and shines her light into the living room, it’s not like she could have shut it off anyway.
“We’re in,” Rae whispers, breaking off some of the glass with her flashlight making the hole big enough for us to squeeze though. “I’ll take the parents. You stay down stairs and get the kids.”
Rae climbs in first. Ember can see her light traveling up the stairs on the other side of the living room by the time her feet touch down on the hardwood flooring. She weaves through the boxes and around a table situated in the middle of the floor. It looks like they are about to move or just moved in.
There is a hall way leading back away from the living room. That’s the first place Ember looks for the children’s rooms. On the left her light shines on metal letters spelling out the name Kyle on the white door. She assumes this is the drunken boy who stumbled home last night. She bets his girlfriend was pissed that he let her step in glass.
With the gun in her right hand she reaches with her left to open the door. It is surprisingly bright in his room. The computer screen spills blue light onto the floor. That combined with the yellow light of the flashlight lets Ember see what she is doing. She can see everything perfectly. She can see what she is about to do and who she is doing it too. She can see the pictures on the wall of what she is taking away and of what he is going to miss.
But she knows that if she doesn’t do this Jackson will throw her out. He won’t give her money for her smokes anymore. She will be alone and without one of the few things she loves. The gun raises and she shuts her eyes, praying that this will kill him fast.
When she opens them she regrets it. Tears flood to her eyes as the blood stained boy lies motionless on the bed, like he’s asleep almost.
“Good work,” Rae says proudly from the door way. “The other one’s across the hallway, better hurry before he wakes up. Because he will wake up if you don’t do something about it. The parents were a piece of cake, if you were wondering.” Ember turns and walks out of the room. She doesn’t want to hear Rae’s happy voice, bragging about something that she shouldn’t be proud of.
The little boy is in a crib. He’s too old for it but Ember guesses he isn’t ready to be in a big boy bed. She also guesses that he never will be. But he doesn’t have to die, she knows that. She knows that letting her kill his brother and Rae being able to kill his parents were two of God’s mistakes.
Giving her this gun was another. Another was making it so easy to make people suffer. But I won’t have to suffer, Ember thinks, because God’s last mistake was making it so simple to end everything.
Behind her Rae is silent.
