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“We could make history,” he reveres. “We could be legends.”
“We can be nothing.”
She says it gently. But that doesn’t stop the finality in her words. The damnation.
Or the way Ethan’s eyes tic.
“We cannot be together, Ethan.”
“You don’t want me?” Fresh tears stream over his cheeks, even as his expression fires with anger. “You don’twantme?”
“No. I—”
“Minka,” I grit out. “Back the fuck up out of range.”
“You don’twantme?” Ethan’s cry echoes off the bare walls. “But I did all this for you. I wantyou!”
“I don’t condone what you’ve done.” She lifts her shoulders and looks him in the eye. “You stole mothers from small children. You stole women from their families.”
“You’re too close,” I growl. “Too close to that needle, Mayet.”
“You took lives, O’Dey, then you thought I would pat you on the head for bringing me evidence of your crimes.”
“But I love you.” Sobbing, he brings the needle away from Kernicke’s neck. But now he points it in Minka’s direction and places his thumb on the plunger. “I’ve loved you since we met, Doctor Mayet.”
“And I was blind to your existence until you stepped in my way.”
“Take that back!” He pushes his body-shield forward another step. “Take it back!”
“Bring back the women you killed,” she counters, “and I’ll consider it.”
“You noticed me! You love me too!”
“I pity you,” she simpers. Closing the space left between them, her chest feathers Kernicke’s, and her hand comes around to her back pocket. “You’re a coward, Ethan. You hurt those women without even looking into their eyes. You stole them from lives they deserved to live, and then you killed your poor mother. And all for what? Because she didn’t love you?”
“You love me!” He cocks his needle arm back in threat.
In response, I release the safety on my gun and prepare to shoot before he drives the syringe into her flesh.
“You could live here, Doctor Mayet. We could be happy.” Snot dribbles from Ethan’s nose and beads on his lip. “We have a lifetime of happiness to experience.”
She scoffs. “You have a lifetime in the loony bin.”
“You take it back, Minka! You take it back now.”
“No.” Wrapping her hand around her crutches, Minka turns her back on the guy and starts in my direction. “Arrest him without hurting him.” Her eyes flicker between mine for a moment. “He’s to be pitied, not punished.”
“Minka!” Ethan surges around Kernicke and swings his arm back like he’s readying to throw a baseball. Veins throb in his forehead and neck. His skinny arms shake with fury, and his left hand reaches forward to take Minka. To grab her. To keep her.
I wrap my finger around the trigger of my gun, preparing to end his life and save hers, but the arc of Ethan’s arm cuts in sooner than I expect.
Before my brain can process, he slams the steel needle into his own chest on a scream that echoes off the walls and floor.
Fletch tackles him from behind so the needle skitters across the floor and lands with aclack. Then Minka whirls back around, having only turned my way for all of a second.
Tossing her crutches to the ground, she drops to her bad knee with a hiss of pain, but before I can dive in and scoop her up, she crawls across Fletcher and slams another needle into Ethan’s chest.
“Call an ambulance!” She shoots the plunger down and pushes the contents into the murderer’s bloodstream. “You don’t die and get out of this so easy, asshole!”
Panting while Ethan seizes on the ground, she looks up to me frantically. “Archer! Call an ambulance.”
