DC walked forward, holding his stare as she planted each foot heel to toe. Metal pressed into her forehead and she stopped, the muzzle of the revolver now filled her vision and the lingering stench of gunpowder muffled her senses. "I deserve this." She told him, "So I won't fight you. I know I deserve it. I've done horrible things, so many horrible things--some I remember through the eyes of another. It didn't feel like me, but it was. I cannot deny them, so I claim them." She forced each muscle to loosen, never lowering her eyes, "I became what they made me. A robot. A killer. The Heartless. Carnage. The Plague. Queen Death. I earned every name they gave me twice over or more. Not wholly by choice. I chose this life, not this path. I am what they made me. Exonerated of fear, mercy and free will. Just as I earned every ounce of self-loathing when I looked in the mirror. So did you. You are no different than I. They made you into a beast, just as they made me. So if you are going to shoot me, shoot me now. I deserve it. Just know that we are the same."
He watched her for a moment, then drew back his hand, "You can fight this demon, Deirdre, I cannot." He put the revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger. The world exploded. He exploded. Skin. Bone. Brain. Blood. He crumbled. She took a breath, swallowed. Recomposed. Then, steadier than before, DC reached up and wiped a mixture of blood, brain matter and bone from her face and turned away from the body on the floor.
As she turned she saw Raja in the corner, her daughter, still so small, looked back and forth between DC and the body again and again. Then, quietly, she asked, "Mommy, who was that?"
DC shrugged and kept walking past the girl, "Your father." She answered, and left the girl in the room with the body.
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