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Mel nods in agreement. “So, let’s go all Thelma and Louise on Vic’s ass and end this. He’s in the control room. I saw him. It’s over as soon as you light the match.”
I stop abruptly and take her hands tightly, pressing them beneath both of my palms. “I can’t make you do anything, but I know you. You’re a fighter. Even if you get torched in a backdraft, you won’t die. Do you seriously want to live through this? Third degree burns, skin grafts, and deformity coupled with lifelong pain?”
She snorts and tries to pull her hands away, but I don’t let her. “Mel, I’m serious. You’ve defied the odds since you were a kid. I just smashed a pair of pliers into your head and slammed you into the wall. I’m the one who’s worse for wear, not you. I only scratched you.”
“I’ve got a hard head. We both know that.” She tries to lighten things, but I don’t smile back at her.
“I’m serious. This won’t kill you. Somehow you’ll make it, but you sure as hell are going to wish you were dead if you’re anywhere near me when I light this thing. Getting your entire body covered in third-degree burns isn’t in your future.” She doesn’t argue. “Besides, someone needs to tell Henry’s next of kin that he was a hero at the end. You can do that in a way no one else can. I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“Me neither. So Henry’s gone, then? Dead?” she asks somberly, completely serious for once.
Nodding, I reply, “I’m afraid so.”
She inhales sharply through her nose, eyes full, and presses her lips together before admitting, “Goes to show people aren’t always as bad as you think. But I am. I never thought Black was up to her neck in this kinda shit. I wouldn’t have done this to you. It’s my fault.”
“No, it’s not.” I catch her eyes. “I was already gone before this started. Even when I thought I had a chance, it’s just not going to happen. Eventually, some people bleed out, Mel. There’s nothing left to save.”
She doesn’t meet my gaze, doesn’t nod, doesn’t verbally tell me she agrees, but I know she does. I see it in the downward cast of her eyes, and the way certainty flickers across her features. It’s a small ripple of acknowledgment across the vast lake of life.
She rounds on me and throws her arms around my shoulders, hugging me so tight she could crack a rib. “If you can get out, if there’s any chance at all, take it.” When she pulls away, her eyes are glassy, but those tears will never fall.
I nod and step back. “I will.”
“Seriously, I can’t leave you. How the fuck am I supposed to just walk away?”
There’s a scrape of a floor board below followed by a deep grunt. Mel stiffens and backs away from the edge of the step. I do the same. We wait a moment and when the sound repeats Mel puts a finger to her lips. She edges toward the railing, peering straight down the center of the stairwell. Her amber eyes widen as her jaw drops. She jerks back, her finger still pointing below, unable to speak.
“What is it?” I whisper, but she just shakes her head. I carefully slink forward and look for the sight that rendered Mel silent. A great white bear is meandering up the flight below us. His haunches move, shifting his massive weight, as he takes one step at a time. The once white fur is matted with crimson along the side of his muzzle and down his side as if he’s recently had someone in his maw.
I tip my head toward the upper landing, indicating we should move. Now. Mel follows in silence, hurrying down the long corridor that connects to the central staircase. It’s out in the open and completely stupid to descend at this location, but there’s a bear in the other direction, and from the look of him, that beast already ate someone tonight.
Mel finally speaks once there are a few hallways between us and the animal. Her voice raspy, as she points in the direction, we came. “That fucker has a bear? For real? I heard he had it, but who the hell has a pet bear? And his fur. Avery…” The shocked expression on her face doesn’t fade as she puts her hand over her mouth.
“I know. Marty told me it was here. When I saw it earlier, that thing wasn’t covered in blood.”
“Great” Mel’s voice cracks, “he ate someone.”
“Take this way out. Avoid the damned bear.”
Mel nods, still shocked. “Shit, Avery, I thought I’d seen everything. But now,” she shakes her head, “shit. A bear.” She smiles at me tentatively, through the fingers of the hand splayed across her face. She takes it away and looks me in the eyes. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
I speak with more confidence than I have. Saying goodbye sucks. “Just turn around and don’t look back. You better go now before he sniffs us out.” I turn away from her, so she doesn’t have to, and walk away.
“Shit, girl.” Mel’s voice hitches. “Promise me. Say it. This wasn’t for nothing.”
“Psh,” I smile at her over my shoulder, “none of this was for nothing. It works out in a master plan where the seriously evil dude gets his ass kicked by the naïve doe-eyed co-ed.”
“The dumbass that pegged you as that chick is going to be sorry. I’ve always seen what you really are…”
I say over my shoulder, “I’ll give you two minutes to get out. Hurry.”
Mel nods tersely and rushes down the hall with the gracefulness of a feline. She glances back at me one last time. Then I’m alone.
CHAPTER 12
The massive double door entry to Vic’s master suite stands directly in front of me. The doors are covered in black lacquer and gleaming as if they’ve never been touched. This location is in the central corridor that connects the entire house on the upmost floor. This is where everything ends. Once I step over the threshold, my life ends. Black warned me that there is no way down and no way out. Since Henry is gone, there is no fancy tech or drones to ignite this hellhole. It has to be me.
I square my shoulders and pull out the gold key. I slip it into the lock and twist. The copper keypad to the right illuminates and prompts me for a code. I copy it from the head of the key, pressing one digit at a time. If this is the wrong number, an alarm will go off. I won’t get to stop Vic. This is the moment where I find out if Black was full of shit. After touching my finger to the pad for the final digit, I wait and stare at the terminal. The illumination on the box turns green and a second lock on the door clicks open. Black was telling the truth.
I put my palms to the smooth ebony door and push into the room. There’s a small corridor directly inside the door that spills out into a vast cream room covered in slick marble. Gold leaf covers the barrel ceiling in tiny squares leading to the opulent picture window at the far end of the suite. There’s a set of French doors standing partially opened. White gauzy curtains billow as the night breeze blows inside. The scent of vanilla fills my head as I flick my gaze around at the flickering gas fixtures. To my right is a bathroom with long marble counters. Tiny soaps in the shapes of enormous creamy pearls fill oversized vases that stretch from floor to ceiling, flanking the entry to the bathing area and creating the warm, sugary scent. To the right is a cavern of a room devoid of light. Murky carpet lines the floor and swallows the space in blackness. That must be the bedchamber. I walk the walls of the foyer once, gliding along the glossy floor, listening for Vic—making sure I’m alone.
There’s not a soul here, but hairs on the back of my neck prickle as if I’m being watched. No sounds, no footfalls. I take another step into the space, silently padding into the middle of the grand bathroom. Multiple stalls are at one end wi
th too many sinks at the other. I twist my wrist so I can see my watch. Mel needs another minute to haul her ass to safety.
The sensation of eyes on me doesn’t fade. There are no cameras in here, unlike the lined hallways. I dodged Vic’s men thanks to Mel. She randomly disabled cameras throughout the mansion, so no one saw me coming. Or maybe she took out the entire team in the security room; I don’t know exactly how she did it. I didn’t have time to ask, but there are no cameras in here so why do I feel like I’m being watched?
The breeze billows the hem of the curtains again, and I resist the urge to walk outside and look down at the pool below. Occasionally, Vic’s voice crackles over my headset, angry. I only get bits and pieces of garbled ranting as more checkpoints respond. If he’s in the security room, then he’s reviewing footage and trying to determine what happened to his pool. Vic is paranoid and thinks enemies are everywhere.
Sean had told me that he was a monster, that he poisoned everything he touched. That truth is vivid now. With a freshly fractured spirit, I can see him for what he was—broken. People can still function if they retreat into themselves and never examine anything. But Sean wasn’t like that. Amanda’s death put him on a crash course with cruelty. He thought it turned him into a twisted excuse for human life, but it didn’t. Sean went through the fire and survived. In those rare moments where he dropped his guard and didn’t shut me out, I could see pure kindness behind his eyes. In a world that treated him so unkindly, any scrap of humanity should have died a long time ago. When I met Sean, he was giving into it, becoming the creature people accused him of being. I’ll remember the man who sacrificed everything to save the ones he loves most—his brothers, his parents, and me. I know a monster when I see one, and my brother has learned to fill every aspect and play the part to walk with mortals, but he belongs in Hell.
