Free Emergence by Various Page B

and shirt she wore. The clothes were adorned with a yellow cartoon bird and she’d had them for years.
    “Very well,” he said. He reached down to pull up Lucy’s backpack from the woman they got yesterday. “Between all we got this week, it’s the best we have ever done.”
    Then he saw it. Sticking out of her sparkling black purse was the butt of a handgun. He released the backpack and instead plucked the gun out and set it on the bed. Lucy looked at him, then at the gun, then back again.
    “I took it off the man from tonight while you were gone.”
    He tried to keep his voice in check. “Why? What did you plan to do with it?”
    “You know.”
    “We don’t kill . ”
    “I know, but—”
    “ We do not kill . Killing is evil and we aren’t evil.”
    Lucy frowned. She slid off the bed and wandered to the window where she stared at the snow. “How else will we escape him? If we don’t kill him, we can never leave this life.”
    “I would rather stay a prisoner than be a murderer,” he countered. “We can’t give in to this life, Lucy. The second we do, it’ll swallow us and we’ll never escape.”
    “I’ll do it. I’ll kill him.””
    “No.” Vlad shoved the gun towards her. It scraped against the watches and jewelry heaped on the bed. “You have no idea what the burden of killing someone will be like.””
    “Neither do you!”
    “I’ve relived enough memories of those who have to know. Get rid of it.”
    It was startling how many people had murdered another human. Whether it was an accident or intentionally, the guilt was something that followed them every day of their lives. Once, he’d read the memories of a man who stabbed to death the man who raped and killed his daughter. The cause was just, as far as Vlad believed, but each memory Vlad sifted through was tinged with the misery and regret of his action. Vlad could’ve gotten rid of this memory, but he kept it. He kept it as a reminder of what could be and filed it away with all the others.
    Lucy picked up the gun and shoved it in the depths of her pocket. “Some days I wonder if you want to stay with Cheslav.”
    He knew she didn’t mean it. She couldn’t. “You promised me there would be no more talk of killing. I already have to erase the memory of this. You know how much that hurts me.””
    Angry, she pulled on her jacket and left the motel room.
    In an hour, she’d be fine. In the meantime, Vlad took a deep breath and began putting away their stolen goods. He needed to sleep.
    Their haul sparkled even in the dim overhead light. Watches, rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings. The finest silk ties. Stacks of cash. He spotted a locket peeking out from under a pile of American dollars. He tugged it free and opened it
    A woman and her baby smiled back at him. He recognized the woman. Two nights ago, he and Lucy were eating dinner at a cheap diner in the University area. An older woman—not old, just old to him, he supposed—wandered in. She was a little drunk, stumbling to a seat at the bar. Her fur coat looked real and her fingers glinted with beautiful rings.
    Lucy told him to go. They had to get six marks or Cheslav would be angry. Lucy was the best at it, being a beautiful young blonde woman, but from time to time Vlad could snare a few himself. He hated it as much as Lucy did.
    Regardless, he wandered over to her and sat down. Behind the hard glint in her eyes and the aggressive flirting, he saw loneliness. He’d touched her bare hands more than once and knew she was a good mark. Her husband recently left her, her daughter left for France and no longer spoke to her. Not that she’d speak to her daughter since she’d fallen in love with a chimeric. Blasphemous.
    The divorce left her wealthy and bored.
    She took Vlad home in a taxi. Lucy narrowly caught a cab of her own and followed them back. Just as he and the woman entered her home, Lucy popped out and put her to sleep. They dragged her in the house, closed the door,