by Dori Lavelle
His unexpected surrender took me by surprise. I let the words hang between us for a moment while I digested them. What could I do now? It would’ve been so much easier for me to kill him if he attacked me first.
My instincts warned me against giving in, telling me to strike while I still could. But he looked so broken, so weak. Like a little boy. If I unleashed the snake on him now, if I killed him, I’d feel as though I were killing an innocent person all over again.
“If you really meant what you just said,” I began cautiously. “If you wish you had protected me, you’ll let me go right now. You won’t do anything to stop me.”
He shook his head sadly. “I want to do that. I want to set you free, but you know I can’t guarantee that I won’t stop you again. That dark part of me... I cannot control it.”
My heart shrank inside my chest. “So you do know about him. Why did you never tell me? Why didn’t you warn me? You loved me.”
He rubbed his upper arms as though he were cold. “The medication worked in the beginning. I thought I was fine. Until I stopped taking it. I thought I could handle it on my own. I’m sorry I was too weak.”
“I didn’t know.” I thought back to the home we had shared together, envisioned the medicine cabinet in our bathroom. I’d never seen any psychiatric medications there.
Forget the past. Save yourself.
I swiped the tears from my cheeks. “I need you to try now. Suppress him long enough for me to get as far away as possible. Please, don’t let him kill me.”
“I love you, Chloe.” He wiped his eyes. “I want you to be safe. Go, run from me as fast as you can. I’ll do my best to protect you.”
I had to act fast. I slid further away from Miles and struggled to pull myself off the ground.
Within seconds, his strong hands were clamped around my shoulders. “For fuck’s sake, you really think you can run again?”
“I…”
“Yes, you are stupid. You piss me the hell off.” Alvin fell over me and pushed me into the ground, his hands squeezing my throat.
As I fought for him to release me and croaked for him to let me go, I heard a voice. Someone was calling my name.
Owen?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Not one voice, but several. They were louder now. And one of them definitely belonged to Owen.
Thank God he’s alive.
My heart burned with the urge to draw him into my arms, to feel him close, listen to the sound of his heart beating.
“Fucking hell,” Alvin growled and released me. He turned his back to me, diverting his attention to the source of the distraction. His breathing came in short, heavy bursts as he shot to his feet. He dropped to his knees behind a boulder big enough to hide him.
I drew in a huge breath, forgetting about the pain in my body. I had to act now before my chance slipped away.
My gaze shifted to the bag under the bush. Clenching my teeth tight and doing my best to harness my breathing, I reached for it and closed my fingers around the opening. I drew it toward me, careful not to bring it too close.
My heart fluttered with fear at the soft hissing sound that escaped. But I held on.
It’s now or never.
My focus returned to Alvin. I watched him pull a gun from his back pocket and aim it in the direction of the voices.
When Owen and Jeordi emerged from behind the bushes at the far end of the trail, I pressed my lips together to prevent myself from crying out with relief.
A silent prayer filled my heart. Jeordi was also alive.
Dizziness tilted my world as I struggled to sit up. I considered staying put and waiting for Owen and Jeordi to reach me, but Alvin might shoot them. They couldn’t see him hiding behind the boulder.
I raised a trembling hand and pointed at Alvin’s back. Owen didn’t get the message. He picked up pace, Jeordi at his heels. I had no choice. It was time to release the snake.
My heart slammed against my chest as I crawled off the path and got to my feet.
Owen and Jeordi slowed down. They’d gotten the message.
Alvin was so focused on them, he didn’t hear me sneak up behind him.
I extended my arms as far from my body as possible. Using the tips of my fingers, I tilted the opening of the bag toward him. The moment I opened the mouth of the bag, I threw it at Alvin, and stumbled back, landing on my ass.
The snake shot out of the bag and curled itself around Alvin’s neck, raising its head with its teeth bared.
Trying to crawl away, I watched in terror and satisfaction as it struck the side of his neck. A roar of anguish poured out of Alvin’s mouth. The gun flew from his hand and skittered away. Alvin gripped the snake below the head, yanked it off him, and threw it into the bushes. He picked up his gun and spun around. His eyes met mine.
“Fuckin’ bitch!”
A yelp tore through me as he swayed in my direction, face red with rage.
Get away, get away! Why can’t I move?
Sweat trickled down the nape of my neck.
This couldn’t be happening. The snake bite had hardly affected him. What kind of person was he? Not even a poisonous snake could stop him.
Before Jeordi and Owen could come to my rescue, Alvin had his hand around my braid again and began dragging me toward the nearest cliff. Life poured back into my body. At the sound of my screams, birds picked up and flew from their hiding places in the trees.
I won’t let him take me again.
My fight to remove his fingers from my hair and slow him down failed. He only tightened his grip. He only moved faster.
Any second, he would throw me over the cliff.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alvin hauled me with one hand and shot at Owen and Jeordi with the other. Gunfire exploded around me, shattering whatever silence had fallen over the jungle.
I pulled in a deep breath. It was too late. He would not let me go. I was about to die a painful death.
I closed my eyes and prepared for the fall.
“Let her go.” Owen’s steely voice cut through the air. “Let her go now, Alvin, or I’ll shoot you.”
I opened my wet eyes and saw him standing about thirty feet away. His hands held the gun firmly, but terror clouded his face.
“Go ahead, shoot.” Alvin scoffed. “Give it your best shot. Let’s see who’s faster.” He pressed his gun to my head. “Let’s see if you can kill me before I blow her brains out.”
More tears flooded my eyes, distorting my surroundings into a hazy blur.
“Alvin, the only person dying today is you.” In contrast to his terrified expression, Owen’s voice was stable, measured, fearless.
“You have no chance,” Jeordi cut in. “If Owen’s bullets don’t hit you, mine will.”
Alvin dropped me to the ground and placed a foot on my chest to hold me down. The gun was still pointed to my head.
My eyes flickered to his face, detecting a vein throbbing next to his eye. Something else caught my attention then, a slight tremble in the foot that pushed me into the ground.
He put on a good show, but he was just as terrified as the rest of us.
Owen fired a shot into the sky. “Last warning, Alvin. Let her go or I shoot.”
“Go fuck yourself. She’s not leaving this island alive.” Alvin pressed his foot harder on my chest, crushing me with his weight.
I gulped down small breaths, unable to fit enough air into my crushed lungs.
Alvin dropped his gaze to my face.
I heard a click, and then a gunshot cracked the air.
Alvin’s gun crashed to the ground. His foot lifted from my chest as he drew his bleeding hand to his chest.
I coughed and wheezed, greedily drinking in oxygen mixed with dust.
Using his incapacitation to my advantage, I pulled myself to a sitting position and pushed myself away from him, ready to stand.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Alvin’s hand shot out, dragged me to my feet. “Prepare to fall.�
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Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I know you’re in there somewhere, Miles,” I whimpered in desperation. “You don’t want him to do this to me. Please...”
Alvin and I were getting dangerously close to the edge. His bleeding hand was around my neck so I was protecting his front, in case Owen or Jeordi took another shot at him.
“Miles: that’s who you are.” Owen took careful steps in our direction, his hands raised, the gun dangling from his finger. “Look, I won’t shoot. You’re not Alvin. You’re Miles Durant, a good man.”
“I’m not Miles, you son of a bitch.” Enraged, Alvin swung me to one side like a sack of potatoes and kept moving backward. He didn’t even look to see where he was going. Were we going to end up dying together?
A trickle of blood from his gunshot wound ran down my neck and naked breast in a small stream.
“Owen is right,” I added cautiously, my words audible only to Alvin. “You are the man I loved.” I gulped down my tears. “I still… I still love you, Miles. Please, I need you to do the right thing.”
“Fuck you.” His rough voice assaulted my ears. But I heard the crack between his words, a barely audible wobble.
“If you let me go—”
“You’ll what? There’s not a fucking thing you can do, bitch. Nothing.” With a loud grunt, he swung me around so we approached the cliff sideways. We were so close now.
My toes grabbed any solid thing on the ground—grass, rocks, small plants—to help stop me from moving with him. I was no match for his strength and determination.
The water was visible hundreds of feet below. Waves crashed against the rocks that would eventually kill me. A fall I’d never survive.
“Stop,” Owen shouted, panic in his voice. “Don’t do it.”
Alvin ignored him. His chest and arm muscles contracted as he prepared to throw me over.
Owen and Jeordi would not be able to save me without falling to their own deaths.
My eyes met Owen’s. Tears glistened on his cheeks.
Seeing the pain on his face, the fear he had for me, the undiluted love in his eyes, I knew I wanted to survive.
Unspoken words flowed between us. Time stood still as we waited for the inevitable.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to Owen and closed my eyes.
Although Alvin’s heart pounded hard against my back, he didn’t make a move to push me over. My lids fluttered open again.
What was he waiting for? This was the moment he’d looked forward to for thirteen years.
In the heartbeats between life and death, a strange thing happened.
A fist flew into Alvin’s face—his own fist.
“That’s enough! Let my wife go.”
Miles. Oh, Miles. Save me, please.
Suddenly I was thrown from side to side as Miles and Alvin argued, just like they had done earlier today—hurling words at each other, issuing threats and warnings. At one point Alvin tripped and almost lost his balance.
“Try and stop me.”
“I will,” Miles shot back.
In that instant, the hand around my neck loosened and another hit me hard in the back, shoving me away.
A scream ripped through me as I went flying. As I fell.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I landed on solid ground a few feet from the edge of the cliff.
The impossible had happened. Miles had won over Alvin. He had saved me at the last second.
As quickly as I could, I scrambled away on hands and knees to an even safer distance, and then I rose. Ignoring the sharp stones under my feet, I stumbled the short distance between me and Owen, threw myself into his arms, and held him tight.
Owen produced a cloth—the wrap dress I had lost along the way—and draped it around me.
“Thank God you’re okay,” he breathed as he tied the knot just above my breasts.
“Should I shoot?” Jeordi whispered next to us. His gun was pointed at Alvin—or Miles. I wasn’t even sure anymore which persona was out at any point in time.
Owen raised his head to give Jeordi the instructions, but then we all fell silent at the horror movie playing out in front of us.
If I were somebody else, someone unaware of Miles’s multiple personality disorder, I would have seen an insane man beating the crap out of himself. But being me, and knowing what I knew, I saw Miles and Alvin fighting each other.
I clapped a hand to my mouth when one of them picked up a jagged-edge rock from the ground and crashed it on the side of his opponent’s face. He swayed from side to side, groaning with pain.
Blood gushed out of the wound and raced down the side of his neck, disappearing into the collar of his soiled t-shirt.
Both my hands covered my mouth now, my eyes growing wider every second.
The persona on the cliff edge threw himself to the ground. He slammed his head against rocks and roots, pulling at his own hair, pushing his fingers into his own eyes.
I desperately wanted to look away. I tried, but my gaze was drawn to the scene like a moth to a flame.
“What the fuck?” Owen said beside me.
“Should I finish him off while he’s on the ground?” Jeordi asked, but his weapon was at his side now. He was too shocked himself to do anything.
Disbelief wrapped itself around Owen’s words. “I don’t think that’s necessary. At this rate, he’ll finish himself off.”
The man got to his feet only to throw himself down again. He picked up a stick and drove it into his thigh.
More blood, more screaming, more swearing.
“You fuckin’ traitor. You piece of shit.” It was Alvin talking now, and with each word, the body jerked.
That was all it was really: a body they both occupied.
The body hit the ground again with a loud thud, a crunch as though something had broken.
The body stilled.
None of us moved.
The whole world paused.
A flicker of the hand, a lift of the head from the ground. The body rose again.
Like a zombie, it turned to face us.
I looked past the unruly hair and the dirty, blood-stained face, and saw Miles’s helpless eyes. For just a moment before Alvin took over again, I saw the man I used to love.
I wished I could help him.
He stared at me for a long time and mouthed a silent “I love you.” He had mouthed those words to me so many times before, when we were together in a crowded room but too far apart to hear each other. I’d mouthed “I love you” right back.
This time I could only stare, my tongue glued to the top of my mouth.
His weary eyes moved from me to Owen’s face and stayed there. This time, when he spoke, I heard every word. “Take care of her for me… please. Give her what I couldn’t.”
His gaze returned to my face again. “I have to do this. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”
The next moment seemed to pass in slow motion. Miles turned around toward the cliff. And then he stepped over the edge and disappeared out of sight.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
My body was numb. I felt nothing. I was a ghost.
One moment, I was standing in Owen’s arms, a few feet away from where Miles had stood. The next, I was on my hands and knees at the edge of the cliff, gazing down.
As my heart broke inside my chest, I heard the splinters snap, felt their jagged edges digging into my flesh.
The physical pain that had tortured me earlier had melted away. The pain I felt now in the depths of my soul was worse than anything I had ever experienced before.
Owen sat beside me, a hand on my head, crying softly for his best friend, the man who had been like a brother.
I was too shocked to cry.
We said nothing as we watched Miles’s unmoving body on the rocks down below. He had not survived the fall. He couldn’t have.
Emotions swirled in all directions inside my body as I mourned without tears the man I had loved. At the same time, relief filled m
y broken heart. The man who had caused me so much pain was dead.
As we watched the body on the rocks, the waves washing over it, washing away the blood, the dam inside me finally broke.
I looked away from Miles’s body and lay down on the ground. My cheek rested on stones as waves and waves of sobs ripped me apart.
The dead body sprawled across the rocks was not Alvin’s. Though I could not see his face to determine if the personas had switched places mid-fall, I knew.
I could never have imagined the nightmare ending this way. I had been ready to kill both Alvin and Miles, but it hurt deeply to think Miles had to pay for Alvin’s crimes.
It was his body that hit the ground, his bones that broke, his heart that had been shattered at the end.
Alvin had come and destroyed everything, only to step out at the last second, leaving Miles to pay the price.
Miles had been an innocent man, and I deeply regretted what I had done to his younger self, every decision I had made that destroyed him as a child.
As I lay there with images flashing through my mind—images of the past, the future, the present—I wanted to die. I was free, and yet it was impossible to imagine tomorrow.
I would have to go on, of course. Especially now that two people had sacrificed their lives for me—Miles and Jim. How could I let their lives go to waste?
I would live on, find a way to carry the scars stamped onto my body and heart, the burns on my soul.
Even when the physical scars faded, I’d still see them, no matter how much time passed. Every moment of every day would remind me of Alvin Jones. Like Miles, he, too, would remain inside my heart.
I would never be able to look back on the good memories I’d made with Miles without remembering the bad. I’d never be able to look back on the past without pain. My pain, and Jane’s, and Stacy’s, and Jim’s, and Owen’s. So many tears that had fallen to the ground because of me. So many lives lost.
But the price of freedom had been paid. The danger was gone. Melanie was safe, and so was Chloe.