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“I didn’t want to do that,” he says quietly. Too quietly. It’s eerie, like he’s got no fucking soul. Like he’s empty. He looks back at Charles’s dead body on the floor, not bothering to step aside as the crimson puddle begins to stain the soles of his shoes. “I don’t like messes. I believe I told you that.”
I remember his words in the other bunker after Reagan kidnapped me, and my stomach clenches with nausea. I’ve never known a person who considered other people “messes” before, who would be so willing to kill to maintain order and control over his life.
“That’s why I had to deal with your sister,” Alan goes on, his gaze moving to Gray. His voice is calm and collected, like he’s explaining why grass is green. “I had to act quickly and decisively when she started poking around. It seems Reagan said something to her at a party that she shouldn’t have, and it got her curious about the girl’s past. I didn’t realize Beth was investigating me until it was too late to avert it, to lead her in another direction. She’d learned too much.”
Gray lets out a low noise, partway between a growl and a groan, and I feel like a part of me is dying slowly. His pain is almost unbearable to witness, and I hate Alan more in this moment than I ever have before.
“She told me she wanted to be a journalist. I suppose that’s why she did it—poked around in my life instead of leaving well enough alone.” Alan sighs, an almost haunted look crossing his features. “I had to get rid of her. It was clean, simple. Once it was done, it was done, but… I didn’t like it. She was a promising young woman. She shouldn’t have had to die.” His gaze snaps to mine, his eyes narrowing slightly as his voice hardens. “That’s why I tried to give you a chance to live.”
Oh, fuck.
My lower lip trembles as his words wash over me. I think about the guilt I felt a few months ago when I found out why a second scholarship had opened up, the chance I never should have been given.
Because Beth died, and her family wanted to honor her memory.
Alan takes a step forward, his calm mask slipping as anger twists his features. “But that was a grave mistake. Ever since you showed back up, you've done nothing but sow chaos in my life,” he spits. “I should’ve dealt with you the moment you appeared in Hawthorne again. I should have done this months ago.”
I don’t register the way he shifts his arm and points the gun at me until it’s too late. For as often as time has seemed to slow down in the past ten minutes, it doesn’t do it this time.
There’s no hesitation.
No warning.
Just the loud bang of the gunshot.
I don’t even have time to react before Gray is moving, pushing himself in front of me with such force it knocks the wind out of me, his body flying forward as Alan fires.
Gray takes the bullet with his own body. He jerks in midair as it strikes his gut, then hits the floor with a heavy thud.
I think I scream.
I’m trying to scream, but I can’t hear anything over the roar in my ears.
No. Please, no.
24
I stare down at Gray’s body in horrified shock.
Not him too. Not Gray.
First, Alan killed his sister. And now he’s going to steal Gray’s life too.
Sound filters into my ears again, and I realize that I am screaming. The sound is hoarse and piercing as it tears through my lungs and throat and body.
Alan mutters a curse under his breath as he slips his finger over the trigger. Grimacing, he adjusts his aim to take another shot.
To kill me for real this time.
Before he can fire, Elias rushes him, taking him down in a football tackle. I’ve never seen Elias play, and I know he stopped because of a knee injury—but adrenaline must be making up for the injury now, because he moves so fast he’s almost a blur.
His body crashes into Alan’s with a vicious thud that sends both of them falling to the floor in a heap. The gun flies out of Alan’s grip as they land, skittering across the floor. The older man chokes out a breath, grunting in rage and shoving Elias off him.
Thanks to his goddamn personal trainer and fitness regimen, Alan is more agile than he has any fucking right to be, scrambling away before Elias can twist around and pin him back down. He wraps his hand around the gun again, firing wildly as he surges to his feet.
The bullet penetrates one of the wooden shelves with a deafening crack, and before I can dive for cover, Alan leaps forward and grabs me by the hair. I scream, trying to tear away from him, but his grip is tight, burning, painful.
He yanks my body up from the ground, forcing me to stand in front of him. The tip of the gun presses into my temple with bruising force, the warm metal digging into my skin as I try to suck in a breath, try to pull away from him.
