“You ever shot a gun before?”
I forced something that almost passed for a smile, though my throat was desert dry. “Isn’t it just… point and shoot?”
His lips twitched, not quite a smile. “Point, breathe, then shoot. Center mass. Don’t wait for a warning.”
He turned to go.
I didn’t stop him.
Couldn’t.
Because I knew, with a clarity that hurt, that if it came down to it, he’d lay down his life to protect mine.
And I wasn’t ready to grieve anyone else.
Not tonight.
Not before the world knew the truth.
Our story wasn’t ending like this.
CHAPTER 67
AVA - WHAT WOULD REMI DO
For a while, there was only silence.
Not peace. Not calm.
Just that awful, bone-deep kind of silence that made your skin itch and your mind spiral. The kind that doesn’t feel empty but charged, like the air right before lightning splits the sky.
I sat in the center of the cabin like a ghost; the USB Gray had given me still clutched in my hand so tight the edges dug into my palm. My laptop hummed on the table beside me, backup still crawling along in the background. The gun rested on the couch next to me. I hadn’t touched it since Gray left. I hadn’t moved much at all.
Every minute that ticked by scraped like glass against my nerves.
Where was Gray?
Was Remi okay?
Would I ever get the chance to tell Harlan that I loved him again?
The thought made my throat tighten, a raw ache I couldn’t swallow down.
I closed my eyes and saw it all, the mess that had led us here. The clinic, the cuffs biting into Remi’s wrists, Jack standing cold and unreadable on the precinct steps, the way Harlan looked at me the last time we were in the same room. And I couldseeit all, even though I was still angry, even though I was still hurt.
He loved me.
And if I was being honest with myself, he was still my forever.
We’d figure it out. We’d get through this.
We just had to survive the night first.
I wouldn’t let her win.
She would suffer for this unravelling thread of truth and powerand lies and love. Everything we’d sacrificed to get here… I wouldn’t let her burn it to the ground.
That’s when I heard it.
