Check.

The first winter after you left was brutally cold.

You’d gotten me used to warmth. Your hands were always warm. You got me my first pair of fleece-lined gloves, in that rust-red color I’d soon come to associate with you. At night, we’d light the fire, and you’d tell stories until my head started to spin. Even in my dreams, life was warm, because you were there. You were life. You were the fire in the hearth, the blood in my veins, the breath against my face.

I don’t remember how many years I was with you. You picked me up when I was a child. Stuck a knitted hat on my fragile head and brushed back my knotted hairs. And from then on, it was always us. The Silver Tongue and his Chekov’s Gun. You could talk your way out of everything, I thought. You’d live forever. You’d hold my hand until the day I took my last breath. What were we, even? You weren’t my father. You weren’t my lover. A mentor. That’s what you were assigned to me, and that is all I am allowed to remember you as. The air in my lungs, the beat of my heart.

The pounding of feet against the pavement. The scrape of metal against brick. The click of a gun. That damn gun! The metal was cold. It was always cold. The gloves trapped in my body heat, never letting it warm up. You said it was for the best, you said nobody would tell it had been used. But you don’t know about guns. You never knew how to kill. You knew how to lie, and groom, and manipulate, but you could never kill. You broke the soul and kept the body alive. It wasn’t your fault. Killing was all I was taught. Coercion was all you knew.

They don’t want me to think that. They don’t want me to realize that. They wanted me to hate you, because I killed the people I hated, but I never could hate you. I never could hate what you did to me— was it assigned? Was it your own free will? I don’t know. I’d say it wasn’t in your nature, but we both know nobody knew what your nature actually was. You didn’t know. You hid it from me, but I saw you staring in the mirror that night before I killed you. I saw the way you looked at yourself, and I saw the way you looked at me. You looked at yourself like you were a stranger, and me like I was a monster you created.

I guess you were right, I am a monster. A successful, no, a useful monster. A monster that follows orders and sits all pretty and doesn’t pull her chain. But I was still a monster to you, in the end. Wasn’t I? I killed you. I killed you, and you let me.

I wish I could tell you that it wasn’t my idea. The list of daily executions. Rats, the injured, old weapons. Someday, I’ll be on that list. It wasn’t your fault, again. I know you weren’t a rat. I would’ve seen it if you were. But the era of seduction was coming to an end. Our enemies would slit your throat before you could think of a lie. There was no more use for a Silver Tongue. And so the Queen called for him to be disposed of by his beloved Chekov’s Gun.

You named me not for my talent or my weapon, but for a rule to follow. How odd. How exciting. How goddamn rebellious.

Half the names on the list had already been crossed off by the time it ended up in my hands. I don’t know if the previous holder had been killed. Or maybe he quit. Or maybe he was one of them. I didn’t see your name, at first. I didn’t see it until I got to it. Until it was time for you to die. You would have tricked me into coming to you. I didn’t need to.

I think you knew, didn’t you? You knew it was time. You were waiting there for me when I held the gun to your head. You didn’t struggle and you didn’t run. You couldn’t look me in the eyes as I pulled the trigger. What did you expect? You named me Chekov’s Gun. Everything must have a purpose. Everything must have a role. The era of seduction was coming to an end, and you were no longer needed.

The first winter after I killed you was brutally cold.