Long Way Down

Will wakes the morning after Shawn's murder and observes The Rules of the neighborhood: no crying, no snitching, get revenge. He retrieves Shawn's gun, enters the elevator on the seventh floor, and the doors close.

The elevator stops at floor 6. Buck, Will's friend who was shot dead eight months ago, gets on. He doesn't know he's dead. He talks about Shawn, about the neighborhood. He descends one floor with Will and then he's gone.

The elevator stops at floor 5. Dani, a neighbor shot dead when she was seven years old — caught in crossfire, a bystander — gets on. She wants to show Will a picture of her dog. She is the novel's most innocent ghost and its most devastating argument.

The elevator stops at floor 4. Uncle Mark, Will's mother's brother, gets on. He was killed before Will was born — Will has never met him, but recognizes him from a single photograph. Uncle Mark is the deepest root of the cycle, the proof that The Rules have been killing this family for longer than Will has been alive.

The elevator stops at floor 3. A stranger gets on — a young man Will doesn't know. Slowly, Will and the reader realize this is Frick: the man Shawn killed, the first link in the chain that caused Shawn's death. The ghost of Will's brother's victim.

The elevator stops at floor 2. Shawn gets on — Will's brother, the person he is avenging. Shawn knows exactly where Will is going and why. He was here before. He made the same trip. He has one thing to show Will before the doors open.

The elevator reaches the lobby. The doors open. Will stands with a gun in his waistband at the edge of a decision. The novel ends. Reynolds refuses to tell us what Will does — the ending is deliberately unresolved, and the silence is the point.