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I scoffed, even though it was choked. “I haven’t touched her. This is between you and me.”
“Well, we already know you die today. The question is, if Paisley here is gonna die, too. Seems to me, you changed your tune as soon as pretty boy showed up here.” He hissed it at her ear.
Frantically, she shook her head against his chest. “No, I haven’t. I’m right here. Let’s go. You and me.”
“Liar.”
He dragged the blade across her throat.
“No!” I shouted.
Blood spilled out, and he shoved her forward. Her hands went to her throat as she dropped to her knees.
“Paisley!” I screamed. Agony cut me in two. “Paisley!”
“Go,” she gurgled.
Horror sheared through me, my entire body in turmoil, in this rage and desperation.
I lifted my gun to Nate, but he’d produced his own, and I knew I only had one second, and I had to make a choice.
A choice I never wanted to make.
I fired a shot at him.
I didn’t wait to see if it’d struck. I rushed for Evelyn and scooped her into my arms. I had to get her out of this cabin, to Ezra who should be here any second, then I would return for Paisley.
The perfect weight of the child almost made me stumble. The relief of having her in my arms. The truth that she was breathing and whole.
I darted back to the doorway to the shouts of the monster behind me, “You piece of shit. You were always gonna die, but now it’s gonna be painful.”
Protecting Evelyn against my chest, I shifted enough that I could fire a wayward shot in his direction, hoping to divert him.
I just had to get her through the fence line, and she would be safe.
I flew through the opening, rounding to the path that ran the river.
Two officers were running our way, their guns drawn.
Relief blazed, mixed with the shearing torment that burned me through.
Paisley. Paisley. Wait for me. Wait for me. I silently begged it, screamed it, compelled her spirit to listen.
To hang on.
Not to let go.
“You bastard. I will peel the skin from your body,” the voice hurled from behind.
I could feel the heat of his poison seeping out, the malignancy, an infection that threatened to overwhelm.
“Get down!” Ezra was suddenly there, coming up to the side of the other officers, his gun drawn.
I dove to the ground, protecting Evelyn the best I could as we hit the thick grasses below. My body covered hers.
Armor.
A shield.
My life I would gladly give.
Gunshots rang out. Piercing the air.
Shouts and roars.
I covered Evelyn’s head, held her against me while I peered out to the mayhem that went down beside us.
Nate was struck again and again, his body riddled with bullets. He stumbled back and to the side before he tripped into the river.
Gone.
A roar of something unintelligible ripped out of me, and I hugged Evelyn to me for a second, whispering, “You’re safe. You’re safe. I have to get Paisley. Stay right here.”
I tried to keep the tremoring out of my voice, the misery that wailed.
I jumped to my feet.
“Get an ambulance out here!” I shouted as I ran back for the cabin, fucking hating with every step that I’d left her, but I knew putting Evelyn first was what Paisley and I both had to do.
Because she was our meaning.
The purpose we had found.
One we had found together without having any clue of its significance. The way one little girl would change us.
I blew back through the doorway and dropped to my knees at her side. She was face down on the hard plank floors.
Blood pooled around her.
“Paisley.” It left me as a prayer. “Paisley.”
I touched the side of her neck. Her pulse point beat weak. So weak. A bare intonation that still blustered through my veins and poured into my soul.
I slowly rolled her over. Her face was ashen, her lips so pale, her neck gaping where he’d slashed it open.
Ripping off my shirt, I balled it up and pressed it firmly to the wound. “Paisley.”
“Oh, fuck.” Ezra gasped it behind me.
“Get an ambulance!” I screamed it that time. “Get an ambulance right now!”
I turned back to her, leaning over her, begging her, “Stay with me. Stay with us. We need you. Today, baby. We need you today. Now and forever.”
Because I didn’t know how to do this without her.
The one who’d come into my world and shaken it to its foundation.
Changed everything that I knew.
This chaotic, wild girl.
My beautiful, reckless angel.
FORTY-NINE
CALEB
I sat slumped in the chair of the small room, held in the silence that droned with tragedy. A television hung on the wall, muted with captions running along the bottom of the screen.
The news channel replaying and replaying the headline that the Seattle Slayer had been killed during an abduction/hostage situation in Colorado.
I wanted to ram my fist through the fucking screen, hating the way they repeated his atrocities, that they gave him a name as if he’d earned a title.
