“I thought I said not to touch her.” Damien advanced with menacing purpose. The move was out of character which made it all the more disturbing.
“My business here is finished,” Alex said. “It’s over. I got what I needed. Don’t make me do something you’ll regret.”
“As someone once said, this isn’t over until I say it’s over.”
Alex recoiled in pain. He gripped Amy’s upper arms in a bone-crushing vice, refusing to let her go despite his own discomfort. “If you kill me, I’ll take her down, too,” he rasped through an invisible chokehold.
Her eyes blazed. She, Amy Evans, used like a pawn in someone else’s escape? Not likely. She went limp in Alex’s arms, counted to three, and threw her weight to the left. His grip on her right arm slipped. She twisted away from him and pulled Max’s knife from her boot as she pivoted.
Alex raised his gun. Damien tackled him. The shot meant for her chest glanced off her arm. Alex pressed his gun to Damien’s chest and flinched. He lowered the weapon and slammed his palms into Damien’s shoulders, shoving him backward into the bay window. It smashed with a deafening crash, and Damien fell out of sight. Amy gritted her teeth against the searing pain in her arm and plunged her knife into Alex’s stomach. He clutched the wound and howled like a dying animal.
Alex made a wild grab for her hair. He was trying to use her as a shield again. She darted backward, but he was too fast. He caught a few strands, and she felt them part company with her scalp as she flung herself to one side. Something bright and glowing burst from Kimmy’s gun, and an explosive shot rocked the world. Alex’s fingers scrabbled at her ill-fitting shirt and then fell away. He collapsed to the floor and did not get up.
Amy staggered a few steps away and turned to look at him sprawled on the floor. His eyes were open and filled with panic, and his hands were outstretched as if reaching for something he would never be able to grasp. He looked more vulnerable in death than she had ever seen him in life.
“Is he dead?” Nova’s voice was choked with tears. The eleven-year-old stood, pale-faced and shaking, by the kitchen door. Amy fought a wave of nausea. She had watched them kill her brother.
“Yes.” Kimmy spoke with calm conviction. “Alex is dead.”
Nova rushed from the room with a heartrending cry. The vice of terror constricting Amy’s chest loosened and fell away. Everyone was safe. Everyone but Zack. Grief flooded her soul.
Sirens pierced the night as Amy at last crawled to Zack’s side. She wrapped her arms around him and sobbed against his chest. The boy who had saved her in every way possible lay lifeless in her arms. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I was trying… I thought… I’m so sorry, Zack.” She clung to him and cried like she would never be able to stop.
Damien placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Uh, Kimmy? When should we tell her?”
Kimmy cleared her throat. “Amy, look at Zack. Really look at him.”
“Why are you crying all over my shirt?” Zack flashed her a weak, shaky smile.
Joy flooded Amy like a river breaking free of its banks. The room spun with the force of her relief. “You’re not dead!” Elated shock rocked her world.
Zack snickered. His laughter was cut short by a spasm of pain that rippled across his face and flooded Amy with concern. “Don’t worry, I’m still here to argue circles around you.”
Amy threw her arms around him with her heart pounding in her chest. Zack was alive. Her world was whole again. He inhaled sharply. She let go. “Sorry.” Confusion clouded her joy. “How? Alex shot you.”
Zack lifted his shirt. “Bulletproof vest. Kimmy told me to wear one after we found out I was Alex’s target.”
“At least I had one good idea,” Kimmy said as a swarm of police officers and EMTs streamed into the room. “Figures you’d show up after all the action is over.” Amy smiled. Kimmy had an excellent affinity for snark.
The group was hurried to the hospital and split up according to their injuries. Amy went to orthopedics to have her arm placed in a sling. A dark-haired intern gave her local anesthetic and told her to relax. She gazed sleepily out a window. The sun was rising over the distant mountains. The Blood Moon was nowhere in sight.
She joined Charles, Jessie, Kimmy, and Peter in a hospital waiting room. Damien was being treated for lacerations from the broken bay window, and Chris and Nova were on the psychiatric floor with counselors. Max had split soon after being questioned by the police. Amy had followed through with her promise and claimed she had never been abducted. All charges against him had been dropped.
Everyone else was waiting for Zack to come out of surgery. The bulletproof vest had saved his life, but the impact had still caused damage. The doctors guessed he had at least a few broken ribs.
Peter put an arm around Amy and pulled her into a hug. “It’s going to be okay. Everyone is safe now.”
Amy nodded, channeling him silent thanks for his steady, calming presence. She glanced at Kimmy. The young officer sat on Peter’s other side, exhaustion hanging about her like a thick, dark cloud. She awarded Amy a soft smile. “You know your stuff. You’ll make a great addition to the force someday.”
Amy gave her a radiant smile. Kimmy’s praise was hard to win, which made it all the more meaningful.
“How’s your arm?” Jessie touched her cast.
Amy held it up for inspection. “It has to stay in a sling for a few weeks, and I have to come in for regular check-ups to make sure it doesn’t get infected. Other than that, it’ll be fine.”
Kimmy narrowed her eyes. “You got lucky. Next time someone’s shooting at you, listen to Damien and stay down.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Amy leaned into Peter and closed her eyes. Near-death experiences weren’t usually this draining. She blamed Max entirely. That boy exhausted her.
Peter gazed at Kimmy, his expression tender. “You tired, too? Want a headrest?”
“What the hell.” She flashed him an endearing smile. He slipped his other arm around her waist. Kimmy rested her head on his shoulder with a contented murmur.
Jessie made a disgusted noise. “No way am I doing that.”
“That’s fine. I’m out of arms.”
Charles slipped an arm around Jessie. She smiled adoringly at him, and he went a deep shade of crimson.
Amy at last began to relax, soothed by Peter’s reassuring presence. She drifted in and out of consciousness, only dimly aware of the conversation around her.
“We make a good team.” Peter’s low voice rumbled against Amy’s ear.
“True that.” Kimmy giggled. “They should give us a special task force name like Crime Stoppers!”
“Too bad Crime Stoppers is already taken.”
“We’ll have to think of something else.”
“Maybe we should think about it in detail, over dinner?” Amy smiled at the hope in Peter’s voice. She adored her sweet, shy gangsters.
“Totally.” Kimmy yawned. Amy grimaced. Kimmy might be brilliant, but she was also clueless.
“I was wondering if…” Peter shifted in his seat. “I have a great time with you, and I know I’m nowhere near in your league, but if you feel like underachieving for once in your life. I really like you. God, I’m messing this up.” He covered his eyes.
“Mr. Jenkins, are you trying to ask me out?”
“Uh, yes?” Peter shot her a sheepish grin.
“I’d love to go out with you.”
“Seriously? I mean, uh, right, cool.”
Amy smiled serenely and drifted off to sleep. Peter had found love at last. The world was a magical place.
“Amy Evans?” Amy opened her eyes and jerked upright. Zack’s doctor was striding toward them.
“Yes?” Panic saturated the word. Had something gone wrong?
“Zack’s in recovery. He’s asking for you and Charles.”
“That’s great!” The rush of relief was so intense it made her muscles weak. Amy glanced around for Jessie. Her chair was empty.
Ch
arles followed her gaze. “She went to call her parents.”
Amy sprang to her feet and flashed Kimmy and Peter a gleeful smirk. “Come on, Charles. Let’s leave these two lovebirds alone.”
Forty-seven
ZACK GAVE AMY a sad, tender smile as she charged into his hospital room with Charles hot on her heels. She was heartbreakingly beautiful, even in baggy black dress pants and an overlong blouse. Chris gave her his chair by the bed. He had been cleared by his counselor and had dropped in for a visit on his way downstairs. Kimmy had offered to put him up until their mother flew in to escort him back home. Chris had babbled nonstop for a full fifteen minutes, recounting his nightmare with an endless barrage of exclamatory remarks. Zack had finally found an opening to ask about his friends and learned that Max had been cleared and Amy had lied to him for the past three days.
“How you feeling?” Amy took Chris’s vacated seat and reached for Zack’s hand. He let her thread her fingers through his but avoided meeting her gaze.
“The bulletproof vest was genius!” Charles pulled another chair up to his bedside.
“All Kimmy’s idea.” Zack’s words were stiff.
Chris glanced awkwardly between Zack and Amy and scuttled a few steps toward the door. His sky blue eyes gave everything away. He hadn’t meant to make Amy look bad. He was dying of guilt. “I’m gonna go check on Nova.” Chris threw Amy an apologetic wince and scurried out the door.
“Is he okay?” Amy gazed after him in concern.
“How’s Max?” Zack’s tone was as sharp as a double-edged sword.
Amy stared at the floor. “Fine. He went back to campus.”
“Good for him.” Zack glared morosely out his window. The cheerful sunrise of a couple hours ago had given way to an overcast morning. Welcome to Vancouver and its bipolar weather.
“Is there something wrong?” Amy’s voice was pinched with worry.
“Not at all. You never tell me anything, so why would you start now?”
Charles squirmed in his seat. “Maybe I should go.”
Amy’s eyes blazed. “No, stay. Whatever Zack is about to accuse me of, you might as well hear about it firsthand. I know how much you hate being left in the dark.”
Charles threw up his hands. “I’m sorry, okay? You have the right to keep your past to yourself.”
“Oh, Amy keeps a lot more than her past secret these days,” Zack said, his words laced with bitterness.
“I was trying to protect you. You would have done the same for me.”
Charles darted a desperate look toward the door.
“I wouldn’t have lied to you for three days straight!” Zack’s voice rose with anger. Betrayal sizzled in his chest and made his blood burn hot.
“I never meant for that to happen.” Amy lowered her voice in sharp contrast to his. “I’m sorry the thing with Max got out of hand.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, too.”
“I’ll catch you guys later.” Charles sped through the door and tugged it closed with a jarring snap.
Amy gripped his hand. “Zack, look, I know I messed up. I wanted to tell you. I almost did. But I thought the fewer people who knew, the better chance we’d have of fooling Alex. I never guessed you’d drag Damien into it.”
“You let me believe Max raped you.” His voice trembled on the words. “Do you have any idea how that made me feel? Do you have any idea how messed up I was, wondering what he was doing to you? And you just kept going along with it. Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”
“Yes! I came here to tell you.” She closed her eyes and cradled her face in her hand. “I can’t believe Chris told you.”
Zack scowled. “Don’t go blaming him for this.”
“I’m not blaming Chris! I only wanted to explain things my way.” She took a breath and turned accusatory herself. “You let me believe you were dead after Alex shot you! How do you think that made me feel?”
Zack clenched his jaw. Classic Amy move. When put on the defensive, she switched to the offense. “If I hadn’t pretended I was dead, I would be right now.”
She dropped her stare and fixedly studied a speck of dirt on the knee of her dress pants. Guilt washed over him and blanketed him in sadness. He lifted his gaze and finally looked into her face. She refused to meet his eyes. He sighed. “Come here.”
She perched on the edge of his bed. He wrapped his arms around her and enfolded her in a weary embrace. She hugged him gently, worried about his ribs. Sorrow flooded his soul. He had once done the same for her in a hospital room in Toronto. He rested his hand on her injured arm. Her skin was soft and warm, a delicate portrait of beauty hiding the core of strength beneath. She looked up to meet his gaze, her eyes shining with cautious hope. There was no guilt in their misty gray depths. Amy believed what she and Max had done was right, no matter the cost to his sanity. No amount of arguing would change her mind, and if given the chance, she’d do it again. Zack released her, a hollow pit of loss where his heart had been.
“Zack?”
“I can’t keep doing this.” He held both her hands and gazed into misty gray eyes brimming with love. “I can’t keep turning my life upside down for you.” Amy recoiled from the truth of his words. A dagger pierced his heart. He hated seeing her in pain. He loathed being the cause of that pain. He almost snatched back his words. Almost. Instead, he took a breath and forced himself to plunge on. “I love you, Amy. Probably always will. But this isn’t working. You have so many other priorities and a lot of issues to work through.” She opened her mouth to interrupt. He held up a finger so she’d let him finish. “I want to be with someone I can share my life with and who will share theirs with me. I’m tired of the secrets, and I’m done being lied to.”
“Zack, stop, please. We can work through this. We’ve worked through worse. I’ll be more open, I promise.”
“Don’t you get it?” Zack tore his gaze away. “I don’t want to work through this. You make all these decisions to compartmentalize your life. I don’t want to live like that anymore. There’s so much about me that you don’t even know. How am I supposed to open up when you give me nothing?”
Amy’s eyes sparked with anger, her best defense mechanism at last rearing its ugly head. “How can you say that? I shared with you the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“Yeah, you did. Two years ago. Can you think of anything remotely important we’ve talked about since?”
Amy slid off the bed. “It’s been a long few days, and I don’t want to argue. Let’s talk after you’ve gotten some sleep.”
“Amy.” He caught her hand and waited until she looked at him. “I don’t want to talk about this. This is over.”
Her eyes filled with hurt. She stared at him for a long, painful moment. “But I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too.” He guided her into a slow, tender embrace. She tearfully met his gaze. He held her gently as they kissed for the very last time. He had never met anyone like her. She was strength, joy, love, and rage. She was vibrant, brilliant, beautiful, and free. She was the most intoxicating, infuriating, magnetizing individual he had ever had the privilege to meet. God help him, he would miss her. Cutting Amy Evans from his life would be a hell of a lot more painful than removing a bullet from his chest.
Amy broke their kiss. “So that’s it, then.”
Zack nodded with his soul blanketed in sorrow. They shared a long, longing look. Amy turned to the door. He gazed after her, sad and silent, as the girl of his dreams walked out of his life.
Zack sank back against his pillows and put a hand over his eyes. Had he avoided disaster or lost the best thing he had ever had? Had he given up to early or pulled back just in time?
“What happened?” Charles hurried in with two steaming mugs of coffee. “I just saw Amy. She looked upset.” Zack wrapped his hands around the mug Charles passed him and stared blankly into space. “You okay?”
“I broke up with her.” Saying it out loud made it even more real. The hollow
feeling inside him expanded like thick, swift-moving fog.
Shock-filled emptiness yawned between them. “I don’t know what to say.” Charles stared into his mug. “I’m sorry, man.”
They sat in exhausted silence, each immersed in his own grim reality. Zack sipped his coffee and lost himself in memories of Amy. Their first Valentines together and the day she totaled his car. The parties he had dragged her to and the quiet Sundays at Pete’s. No other girl had made him feel so alive. She was completely contrary, the girl who not so secretly loved to flirt coupled with the sixteen-year-old caregiver who had stolen his heart by ignoring him in homeroom. Amy had been his first love, but they had burned bright and hot like a star destined to go supernova. He ought to have known someone would eventually get hurt. He had never expected it to be both of them.
Charles broke the quiet with a tentative whisper. “Now’s probably not the best time, but there’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“Shoot.” Zack managed a small smile. He was glad for any distraction.
“It’s about Damien Gray. He has, shall we say, a colorful history.”
Zack snorted. Charles’s word usage never failed to amuse him. “What sort of colorful history?”
“He stabbed your roommate, had horrible parents, and went to prison at age fourteen. But his life was a nightmare. If circumstances had been different, I might have wound up just like him. Plus, he has helped us a lot in the past few days. It would suck if he ended up behind bars.”
Zack held up a hand. “Slow down. Since when do you advocate for ex-cons?”
Charles quirked a lopsided grin. “This will be a first for me.”
“What do you expect me to do about it? Clarisse isn’t a lawyer yet.”
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