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Feed the blade. Watch the light fade.
Conor had barely started back when a gunshot rang out and something hit my shoulder, forcing me backward just as Beck came barreling into me, sending me to the ground as another two shots tore through the air.
I locked on to a man who should have been a ghost as he took aim at Conor and rolled to my knees, throwing a knife into his chest and another into his outstretched forearm while I pushed to my feet. I ran in a dead sprint toward him, grabbing two more knives as he lethargically turned toward me, the gun in his hand drooping and then falling to the ground when one of my knives hit right between his eyes.
Gripping the hilt, I used it to yank his head back and sneered, “You should’ve stayed dead, Tommy,” then drew my last blade across his throat and pushed him back.
The monster raged inside as I bent to retrieve my blades.
Keep her safe, safe, safe.
My head whipped around to where Conor was standing halfway to the guesthouse, back toward it, gun in hand and face leeched of color.
“Get Jessica,” I yelled, swiping at the last knife and turning to see what he was staring at.
It was instant.
The way the darkness receded.
The way everything felt as if it dropped out from under me.
The way I could no longer breathe for reasons that had nothing to do with a monster and everything to do with the hand squeezing and splintering my heart.
No. No, no, no.
“Beck . . .” I took an unsteady step forward, then stumbled a few steps before I was running to where he lay, the grass soaked in his blood. “No, no, no. Fuck, Beck. Come on, let’s get you—” I froze when he coughed, blood spraying and pooling out of his mouth when he tried to smile at me. “The fuck did you do?”
“You weren’t looking.” He wheezed a wet-sounding laugh, tears streaming down his cheeks. “That’s my hit to take.”
A mixture between a sob and a laugh burst from my chest. “You’re such a fucking idiot, Beck. You’re such an idiot. Why’d you get in the way?”
“Hey . . . remember Aric’s funeral?” he asked. A pained breath worked up his throat, shaking his entire body before he was able to continue. “You lost it. Remember?”
“Yeah, man. I remember.”
“Don’t do that at mine. Don’t make someone . . . knock you out . . . to control you.”
Another laugh ripped from somewhere deep within me, mixing with my sobs. I dropped my head when it became too hard to see him anymore, and somehow I managed a nod.
“Jess . . .”
I looked up to see his tears falling harder, his mouth working but no sound coming out. “I’ll take care of her.”
Another wet cough wracked his body, but that damn smile was there as soon as he settled. “See you in hell?”
I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out, but it somehow still escaped me. “See you in hell.”
His head shook in a quick bounce of a nod and his chest heaved with a choked sob. His stare fell to something past me and tried to focus. “I’m dead. Or this is . . . my nightmare.” He sluggishly moved his hand to his chest, loosely holding one of the knives I’d dropped beside him.
I tried to call back the darkness. I tried to focus on all the blood surrounding Beck and covering my hands to summon him. But there were only flickers as my grief crashed into me in waves.
Jessica’s heart-wrenching cry slammed into me, threatened to knock me over, and making me lose the frail connection I’d made with the monster.
Wiping my blood-soaked hand on my shirt, I took the knife from Beck and slowly looked over my shoulder.
Like before . . . it was instant. Only now the monster came forward in an explosion of rage and need.
Not a sound. Not a trace.
