Page 98 of My Cruel Salvation

Chapter Forty-One

I’m shaking.

Damn me, Christopher’s fallen at my feet, and I’m actually shaking and I hate myself for it. But I’m terrified. Really and truly terrified. Not of dying—that hasn’t scared me for a long, long time. But of not seeing Devlin again. Of losing this chance—having it ripped away from us—especially when he’s so damn close.

“You fucking little bitch,” the attacker snarls. “So you’re the sweet little cunt he’s taken a fancy to.”

I react from reflex, intending to run, but he lunges and grabs me, then yanks me to him. I stumble over Christopher, and my captor makes a show of sniffing my hair, then licks my cheek. “Smell good. Taste good. I see why he likes you. I’m sure he’s going to miss you.”

He starts to lift his gun and terror slashes through me again because I know damn well I only have seconds to live. Fear and loss and Devlin—Oh, God, Devlin.

Crack!

I feel the wet blood. The tissue. The sharp bits of bone.

I sway, disoriented. Confused.

But still alive.

Alive?

I reach up to feel my head. There’s slime in my hair and on my skin, but my head’s intact. Slowly, I look down. And then, damn me, I vomit all over the corpse of the baby-faced man who’d held me hostage.

There’s a hole in his eye, and the back of his skull has been ripped away. A hollow point bullet.

How?

My mind isn’t functioning, and I sink to my knees

It’s only then as I’m sitting there between two corpses that I realize what happened. I crawl to the edge of the cliff and look down into the valley. I’m searching for Devlin, but he’s not there.

He’s not there?

I start to climb up on my knees, and then I freeze. I hear limbs snapping and feet pounding, and I start to shrink away, searching for a hiding place, only to see the foliage shoved aside and Devlin burst into my line of sight.

“Ellie. Baby, baby, are you okay?”

He’s on his knees and I cling to him, crying now. Sobbing, actually, as the events of the day wash over me. I could have lost him. Hell, I could have lost myself. And yet here we are, alive. Blissfully alive.

“Brandy?”

He nods. “With Ronan. She’ll be fine. She lost some blood. He’s making her sip juice.”

I nod, trying to process that, but I can’t. All I can keep in my head is that they’re safe.

“Come on,” he says, helping me to my feet. “I’ll take you to her.”

He leads me toward one of the other SUVs. “You killed him. The one holding me. You shot him from all the way in the valley.”

“Manny,” he says flatly. “And I’m sorry.”

I blink, confused.

“It was risky. Downright foolish. I could have killed you if I’d been off—if the sight had been off—but I didn’t know what else to do, and I had—”

“You saved me,” I say firmly. “He would have killed me. We both know that.”

I’m starting to calm a bit, and I pull him to a stop, his hands in mine. “Is it really over now?”