Page 81 of Thaddeus

“You’re still clear,” Max told us.

With one room left, Kyle and Brooks fell back, allowing Declan and me to enter while they took our six.

Obviously out of patience, Declan didn’t wait for me to open the door. With a booted foot he kicked it in, and with his rifle at the ready, moved in.

Then he froze.

Stopped dead.

I shoved my way past him and I, too, was shocked into a stupor.

Autumn Pierce was straddling a man. We had the couple in profile and blood had already started to seep into the bed sheets. With one more down glide, Autumn plunged her knife into the man’s throat.

“For my sister!” she shouted.

Holy fuck.

Autumn turned and looked at us, and even in the dim room, her dull dead eyes couldn’t be missed.

“Didn’t think you’d make it,” she told us.

“What?” I asked.

“He was leaving in the morning. Didn’t think you’d figure it out in time.”

She rolled to the side, then off the bed, giving us the first unobstructed view of Paul. Autumn was covered in blood.

Covered.

Knees to chest.

Hands coated.

My gaze went back to the man in the bed. She gutted him. From navel to sternum he was splayed open.

Sweet Christ.

“Tell my sister she’s safe.”

For the first time in my life I was without words. Not because of the carnage, not the blood, not the brutality of the act. Because Autumn had enacted the violence.

And damn if Autumn didn’t look just like Emerson. There was no doubt they were sisters, and seeing Emerson’s baby sister standing before me covered in a dead man’s blood was fucking with my head.

“You can tell her yourself,” Declan said.

“Glad to see you’re still breathin’, big guy, but that won’t be happening,” she told him.

“Autumn, it’s time. You need to come with us.” I found my voice.

“It’s time? You know nothing about what time it is,” she snapped.

“I do. We know what happened, who was behind it, and what you’ve been doing,” I explained.

“Well, good for you. But that still doesn’t mean you know jack shit.”

“Then for your sister. It’s time to start healing. She needs you,” I tried.

“No. That was for my sister.” She pointed to the bed. “And me staying away is for her, too. I know what happened to me ruined her life and tore my parents apart. There’s no healing. There’s no going back. Not for me.”