Page 139 of A Sweet Destruction

He went wild, wrestling against his restraints. When I heard his shoulder pop out of place, I said his name again. Louder, with more desperation. He stopped for a second, chest heaving, and looked at me.

I opened my mouth, prepared to deliver another cold-hearted blow. If I thought too hard about how my last words to him wouldn’t be I love you, I would lose my resolve and drag him into death with me.

“Don’t you dare,” Ford snarled, using a harsher tone than he’d ever used with me before.

“I don’t know what else there is to say.” There was plenty to say. Big, grand, sweeping declarations of love. Thank you. Asking him to forgive me.

Elijah could hear the resignation in my voice. With a little huff of breath, he stepped behind me.

I really, really hoped that Ford couldn’t see how I started to shake. I didn’t think I’d be so scared. My vision started to spot around the edges, zeroing in on him. I knew it was the Bond trying to make me focus on anything it deemed safe, but the image of Ford struggling towards me, even as disappointment lined his features, was not making me feel safe at all.

Ford was looking at me in anticipation. Waiting for me to say something more. Say anything at all.

I opened my mouth and realized too late that the only thing I was capable of right now was a broken squeak.

As nonsensical of a sound as that was, it seemed to register like a monologue detailing the depth of my fear to Ford.

He shook his head in disbelief, his breaths started to come in more rapid and rapid heaves. “Esme, I swear to God, you can’t—”

“Well, I certainly can,” Elijah offered, very unhelpfully, from behind me. He had my hair in his hand now, pulling so that my head tipped back and my throat was exposed.

I fought it, solely because he’d forced my head far enough back that I’d lost sight of Ford. I couldn’t go out staring at a concrete ceiling. That only earned me a rough yank and a whimper of pain as my neck spasmed.

Then I felt something cold rest against the base of my throat. My mind was still playing catch up, not quite understanding what was happening. Registering the temperature of the blade first, then realizing that it was a knife that was at my neck.

“God damnit!” Ford screamed, sounding like he fighting impossibly harder. His voice was hoarse, broken, as he said, “Please don’t do this, sweetheart. I am begging you. Please.”

If I could speak, I would have questioned why it was me he was bargaining with. Maybe he sensed that I’d given up. I was still fighting—just for his life, not for mine.

I looked up at Elijah, only really seeing the underside of his chin. “Please. If you’re going to do this, just let me look at him,” I whispered, so low I wasn’t even sure Elijah could hear me. My hair releasing was the only indication he gave.

Then I felt the pressure, the beginnings of the knife digging into my skin.

If I thought Ford had gone crazy before, I was wrong. At the first drop of blood I felt trickle down my throat, he erupted.

He jerked back and forth, a deep creaking sound followed in his wake, as if the strongest steel was bending under the force of a collapsing building. “Esme, please,” he said, his voice so anguished it took me a second to realize that he was speaking through a tear-tightened throat.

Oh.

Death wouldn’t hurt nearly as much as seeing Ford cry. My chest felt severed, my heart ripping apart at the seams.

I could feel Elijah crouching down behind me, moving to speak in my ear.

“This is bigger than you understand,” he said, low, so low that even his cronies hovering around us couldn’t hear. It seemed like he was offering an explanation, though it did little to make me feel the martyr.

I didn’t look at him, not in dismissal, but to keep my eyes on the last person I ever wanted to see. I wished Ford was closer, so that I could pretend it was just us, lying in bed. So I could ignore the sweat and the blood and the tears.

“No!” Ford yelled, his voice booming, right as heat bloomed in my throat, and Elijah slid the knife across in one clean glide.

Chapter 29

Esme

Death was harsher than I’d expected, I thought, my vision blurring as blood poured over my chest. Death was laughing, a low, impressed chuckle.

Delirium coated my senses, making my focus latch onto all the wrong stimuli. It was why the laugh was the first thing I registered, rather than Ford breaking free of his chair, pulling away with his hands still tied to the thick legs.

There were soldiers on him within seconds, trying and failing to restrain him.