“But you tried to cut his life short. Unfortunately for you, we were able to secure a deal behind closed doors, and my brother is on the run.” David takes over the narrative, picking right where Thomas left off. It’s almost like they’ve rehearsed this scene a thousand times before. “And now, you’re going to pay with both your wallet and your bank account, and my brother and I are going to start a new life somewhere in Mexico.” He grins wickedly, flashing pearl white teeth.
“Don’t you mean your brother, myself, and you?” Thomas questions.
“No.”
Thomas cranes his head to look at his friend, confusion passing over his face, but it’s too late. David raises his gun and fires a bullet into his friend’s skull. Hot, warm blood sprays against my face.
My jaw drops, my lips quivering. My eyes go wide in complete denial at the scene playing out in front of me. There are now two dead bodies on the rooftop, and I can’t help but think that by the time this is going to be over, Luke and I will be joining them.
David flashes me a cocky grin and scratches the side of his head with the barrel of the gun.
I know I should remain silent and hope that I can reason with him, but I can’t help the burst of anger rising through my throat. “What is wrong with you people?”
“Technically, it’s just me now, right?” He gestures with both of his hands in front of his face, like he’s trying to say, I don’t know, with nothing more than his hands. “I’m basically broke, and I can’t get my brother out of the country if I’m broke, babe. That’s what’s wrong with me.” He straightens himself out and cocks the trigger of the gun. “So here’s how it’s going to go down, you’re going to hand over your bank account information, or I’m going to kill him.”
He’s dead set on killing me anyways, and if I’m going to die, I at least want confirmation of a few things. “I know it doesn’t matter now, but did you ever love me?”
He leans down to meet me at eye-level, and with absolute glee in his eyes he chews into his bottom lip and grins. “Of course, I did.” He shrugs with apathy before realizing there’s blood splattered on his own face. He stands up straight and wipes the blood off with his forearm. “But those days are long gone, I suppose. You did try to kill my brother…”
“He didn’t give me a choice,” I say lowly, bowing my head and shaking it. He’s so dead set on his version of events that he’s not ever going to listen to me.
“If your boyfriend here never got involved…” He sneers at Luke. “If you didn’t get him involved in this, then none of this would have happened.” He screams in my face and cracks the gun against the back of my chair. I wince in place and force my eyes anywhere else; I make myself look away from him.
He breaks away from me and points the gun squarely at Luke’s head, but Luke doesn’t even seem to flinch. He’s strong, probably always has been that way. He’s looked death in the face a hundred times and he’s survived every time.
David passes me a quick look as if he’s about to pull the trigger if I don’t agree to hand over everything that’s mine.
I try to forge a strong appearance, even though I’m shaking and weak. It’s all I’ve ever been. Any strength I’ve ever shown has been a calculated forgery on my part. “What makes you think I care about him?”
Luke’s eyes rise to meet mine, and though I can’t bear to look at him right now, I know that I have to. I know that I need to be the stone-cold ice queen I’ve been accused of being if we’re both going to stand a chance at getting out of this mess alive.
“You don’t care about this man?” David questions.
“You will never see a dime of this money,” I say defiantly.
“That’s how we’re going to play?” He rolls his eyes and exhales sharply. “Okay, I can play that way.” He shrugs before ripping Luke backwards in his chair so that he fumbles backwards onto the rock-hard surface. He drags him by the collar of his shirt, and with his hands tied behind his back, he’s defenseless. He drags him to the edge of the rooftop and cocks the gun against his head then looks back to me one last time. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t care about this man?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LUKE
I’m not afraid of dying. Or maybe I am, but I’ve just become immune to the fear. I’ve seen so many people die in my life, and I’ve survived countless times when I shouldn’t have. By all accounts, I should be dead by now, but I’m not.
I’m not dead yet, and even though I might not be afraid of dying, I’m certainly not going down without a fight. “We can talk about this,” I say to David, his hand holding me by my shirt. I’m trying to take the diplomatic way out of this, but if that doesn’t work, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. I’m not in the best condition right now, still recovering from being knocked out cold, and he has a gun to my head, so there’s that. “I have nothing to do with this,” I say and wince my eyes, hoping that Ella is smart enough to know that I’m not really trying to sell her out. “You and I can make a deal.”
“Come on pretty boy, don’t you see your part in this?”
“I’m going to kill you,” I grind out, betraying any sort of diplomatic deal I was trying to work out. I guess you could say I’m hotheaded. I just hope that temper doesn’t get me killed.
He laughs manically as maniacs tend to do, his shrieks cutting through my eardrums. “Let me just spell it out for you, you don’t have any leverage here. You’re actually shit out of luck unless I choose to save you, which isn’t looking very likely at the moment.” He shrugs and pulls on my shirt tighter, dragging me closer to the ledge. “Now call me crazy, and maybe it’s none of my business, but what kind of relationship could you two possibly have without trust?” He shakes the gun towards Ella. “You know what? Maybe she’s right. Maybe she doesn’t care about you whatsoever. Just maybe she wouldn’t care if I threw you over this edge.”
He rips me backwards and for a split second, I think he’s actually done it. I think that he’s thrown me over the edge of the rooftop. My eyes widen as I scan the view below. There’s no way someone could ever survive the fall. All of a sudden, dying? Yeah, I’m terrified of it. I swallow roughly and pray that he doesn’t let go of me, because I don’t have the balance right now to stay standing.
“Stop,” Ella lets out a bloodcurdling scream that pierces right through my ears, and more painfully, my heart. “Stop it,” she whimpers lowly.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” He pushes me forward and delivers a kick against my back so that I collapse against the hard surface beneath me. Though I can’t see him from this angle, I can hear him cocking the gun, and I’ve got a gut feeling that it’s aimed squarely at my head. “You’ve always been weak, Ella. You’ve always run away from your problems instead of facing them. You were an easy target for our letters. But you weren’t alone in receiving them. Every girl who tried to screw us over in that God-forsaken school got them, but you… you had to get Luke-boy here involved.”
With the gun still affixed and aimed at my head, he takes a few measured steps backwards so that both Ella and I are in his view. “It started with innocent enough letters and texts, and then they quickly escalated.” He chews into his lip and scuffs his boot against the hard surface. “You’re not special, Ella. You’re just stupid. I should have known though. You’ve always been so damn weak. Should have known you’d get someone involved. We tried to stop him, tried to put a rift between the two of you.” He throws an arm around my throat and pulls my head next to his. “Although if I’m being honest, I really do think my brother still has the hots for your girl, Luke-boy.” He sighs. “It would make a lot more sense, right? If it weren’t just a prank. If it were an old boyfriend who never quite got over his girlfriend, if rejection after rejection turned him into a monster that went around stalking his exes… Yeah, that story actually does make a lot more sense.”
“You’re full shit,” I grind out and claw at his arm, trying to free his grip enough so that I can breathe properly
.
“Oh, and one more thing, Luke… Does the name Dominic Ford ring a bell?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ELLA
I’ve been playing along, pretending to be the little innocent victim. All the while, I’ve been fighting to free my hands from the rope binds behind me. I’m close but not close enough. I watch David and Luke carefully, hoping I’m able to do something before this ends with Luke’s dead body thrown off the ledge.
David drags Luke back to his feet and pushes the gun against his temple. “But what’s it going to be, babe? You’re at a crossroads and you’re going to need to decide between your money or your man, and you don’t have a lot of time before I make that choice for you.”
I swallow a nervous lump in my dry throat and nod my head gently. “You can have it,” I say lowly with gravel scratching at the back of my throat. “You can have everything.”
“See?” He smirks and exhales like he’s relieved or something when we all know he’d have no problem pulling the trigger. He has no qualms with taking lives if he could kill his own friends in cold blood. It’s not the David I used to know, but I should have realized that at the pawn shop. “Now tell me, babe… Was that so damn difficult?”
“No,” I say flatly and finally manage to free myself from the binds completely. My eyes rise slowly to meet David’s, and just as they do, I jump to my feet and race forward.
I can see it all happening in slow motion. David swings his arm so that the gun is facing me now, but Luke jumps into action, delivering a jab against Thomas’s side with his elbow. David stumbles backwards but manages to straighten himself out. Just then, Luke delivers another jab against his stomach, forcing him to lose his footing again.
David teeters off the edge of the roof with his hands spinning in circles in the air as he fights to steady himself. His two hands drop to his side and I can’t tell if it’s an accident or not, but he pulls the trigger.
The gun goes off.
Luke stumbles backwards, but is able to get in one last punch before faltering to the ground. David drops beside him and the gun scatters against the hard concrete and out of his reach. My eyes shift back to Luke, lying on his back as he cradles his leg in his hands.
He’s been shot but he still manages to scuttle across the ground in an attempt to grab the gun before David can get to it. He’s not fast enough. David arches his foot back and lands a hard blow against Luke’s chest, sending him rolling to his side.
David breathes heavy and seethes through gritted teeth as he grabs hold of Luke by his hair and raises his head so that he has the perfect leverage to land a punch against his face. Luke lands on his back with a loud crack and David’s not finished with him. Not even close.
He’s going to kill him.
I look back at the ground and notice the gun lying on the edge of the pool. I take a quick glance back at the two boys before diving to the ground and scooping the gun in my hand. By the time I rise to stand, David’s already staring me down.
He twists to face me fully and rolls his eyes. “Do you really think you know how to use that thing?”
“Have you ever thought that maybe it’s not a good idea to be a condescending prick when you’re staring down the barrel of a gun? When you’re staring at the girl who shot your brother just a few weeks ago?”
He shrugs with apathy, and I can’t tell if it’s because he really doesn’t think I’ll shoot, or if it’s because he’s a sociopath, which he clearly is. I’m going to prove him wrong on the first point though because I will pull this trigger. I’ll kill him right where he stands.
From behind David, Luke rises to his feet. He carries himself on his left foot as he circles around the chairs to stand behind me. It takes me a little aback that he didn’t try to tackle David to the ground, but then I remember he’s suffering a gunshot wound. He reaches towards me and tries to pry the gun out of my hands, but I refuse by pulling away from him and pressing my finger against the trigger.
Luke can’t be the one to do this. If this gun is going to go off, it needs to be because I, myself, am pulling the trigger. I need to put an end to this story that should have ended a long time ago. Maybe there’s still a way to end this without any more bloodshed.
“We don’t have to do this,” I plead with David. It’s basically the same plea I tried with Rick to no avail. While I’m fully ready to end this in any way necessary, I’d rather use other options. I’d rather him spend the rest of his life behind prison bars, not just because it’d be a more torturous fate for him, but because at the end of the day, I don’t want the burden of taking a human life chipping away at my soul. I don’t want to add another body to my body count. Even though Rick survived, he very well could have died. “Don’t make me pull this trigger.”
“You see,” he taunts me all the while continuing to stalk towards me with a bounce in his step, “I don’t think you’re going to do anything. You may have shot my brother, but you never loved him the way you loved me. We all know that. It’s probably why he’s so obsessed with you…because he knows it, too.”
“Try me,” I stammer and reaffirm my grip on the gun. My hands are sweating, to say nothing of the sweat beading down my face. “You don’t even know me anymore.”
“Come on Ice Queen, if you’re insistent on this ending with me dying, at least give your boyfriend the gun because at least he knows how to use it. He won’t shoot me in the gut. He’ll shoot me in the head.” He steps closer still, and he’s getting too close for comfort. He’s within range where he could lunge across the short distance between us and grab the gun from my hand.
I take a measured step back and swallow roughly. “Please don’t make me do this.”
He stops and shakes his head, throws his arms outwards. “Why is this so hard for you? Why can’t you just pull that trigger? Does it not run in your blood or something? You shot Rick, now come on, shoot me.”
“I’m not a sociopath,” I whisper so lowly that I’m sure he can’t even hear me, but he doesn’t need to hear it. It’s more for my own affirmation. It’s me telling myself that I’m not a stone-cold killer for doing what I know is going to need to be done. “You’re not giving me a choice.”
Luke reaches for the gun again, but I resist even more so than I had before. I push his hand away from me with the brute force of my forearm and take a measured step forward. I bring my other hand to help hold the gun steady and close one eye to get a better aim.
He chuckles lowly and bows his head. He stays like that for a few beats, and I think he’s close to surrendering, but when he cocks his head upwards with a haunted glint in his eye, I know that he’s not even close to surrendering. He’d rather be dead than ever give in. And he makes that about as perfectly clear as humanly possible when he lunges towards me, growls being thrown from his throat.
I don’t even flinch when I pull the trigger.
Smoke coils out the end of the gun as he comes to a sudden halt. His body goes limp and he falls backwards, landing with a hard crack of his back against the even harder ground.
I continue standing in place with my shoulders squared with my feet and the gun affixed ahead like I’m still aiming at something, but all that’s there is air and the city lights in the distance.
I’m lost between emotions, lost between the fear that’s been driving me into seclusion and the stark realization that it’s now all over. My mind doesn’t know how to process that. It doesn’t know how to process the fact that these demons have come back to haunt me from my past and I’ve now shot two brothers, one of them is still alive out there and the other one is now dead.
Luke lowers his hand over the gun and forces the gun down to my side before he disarms me and tucks the gun into the back of his jeans. I look over to him, my face sullen and my hands trembling.
He throws his arms around me to embrace and comfort me, and then he whispers in my ear, “You know you didn’t have a choice.”
In the moment, his words don’t do much to eas
e the string being pulled on my heart. I’m finally safe and this nightmare is finally over, but at what cost? If I had to lose my soul to feel safe in my own home and in my own skin, then I’m not sure it as worth it.
And the truth is that there was a time when I loved David, and maybe that’s why it took so long to pull the trigger.
Luke continues to caress me, his hands running in circles over my back. His body is so warm, and even though the night weather isn’t that cold, my entire body is freezing. His body against mine comforts me.
I look down and see him pushing most of his weight onto his left leg and then I remember. I take a careful step backwards and cry, “Your leg.”
“It’s merely a flesh wound.” He waves off my concern with one hand before clearing his throat and eking out, “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” I nod, trying to assess the situation. I take a look around at the three dead bodies lying on the ground and realize that I’m going to have to explain this to someone and pray that they know I’m telling the truth. I’m hoping that since we’re on record with the incident with Rick that it won’t be too difficult. “I’m going to call for help.”
“Probably a good idea.” He nods, chuckles lightly, and drops down into a chair behind him. He’s clearly exhausted, and I understand completely. I’ve been battling these demons for so long and I look forward to being able to breathe and sleep and eat and do all those other things I’d given up on.
I’m unable to force my feet to move out from underneath me. I want to stay here with him and not separate until help arrives. Even though I know we’re out of the danger zone, it’s still hard for me to bring myself to tear myself away from him. My eyes tangle with his and in his blue eyes, I see something familiar and beautiful. It’s like I’m seeing him again for the first time.
I lean over him and plant a kiss against his lips. I had meant for it to be short and sweet, but when he hooks one arm behind my neck and pulls me in deeper, it becomes something else. I can’t break away from him. I can’t leave him here. He turns me inside out with his mouth, and I think to myself that maybe I could love him someday. Hell, maybe I already do…
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