The remote was on the couch, so I picked it up and turned off the TV. I remember thinking that night, where the hell is she? I dropped the remote on the couch and headed upstairs, thinking that it was funny that she would have gone out just that fast. Maybe she’s hidin’. I took my time looking into each of the upstairs rooms, but she was nowhere to be found. I knew then that somethin’ wasn’t right. I came back downstairs and opened the kitchen door, and I immediately fell to my knees.

There on the kitchen floor, I found her; lying there with her arms out in front of her and her face turned to the side. Both eyes were blackened, nearly purple; there were blotches of blood on her cheek. Her face was swollen so much that I couldn’t believe I was looking at my wife. There was so much blood, and there were bullet wounds in her back: one just below her left shoulder blade, another a little below it, and two near her lower back.

This time would be different.

I went upstairs and started down darkened the hallway. As I got closer, I could see that there was somebody standing by the bedroom door. “Ms. West? What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know. This is your dream,” she said and dropped that giggle that always makes me wanna strip her down and fuck her brains out. But that wasn’t what I was there for. Or maybe it was. Just the fact that she was there made the whole thing different.

“I don’t know either, but you better stay close to me.”

Ms. West smiled. “I plan to.”

I opened the door and stepped inside slowly. There he was, Kip Bartowski; the man who killed Cassandra. He was sitting on the bed with his gun on his lap. I looked around the room for Cassandra, but she wasn’t there. Bart stood up when he saw me. Then he smiled and looked at the gun in his hand. He put the gun on the bed and motioned for me to come toward him. I handed my gun to Ms. West. “You want me to shoot him for you, Mr. Black?”