AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I tried to stay calm, breathing slowly, biting down on the towel so I wouldn’t inhale through my mouth. Within seconds, there was a commotion outside the window, and I tried to pop my head up to see if it was Lucian.
“Stay down,” the voice yelled. “I’m breaking the window.”
I covered my head and waited as the sound of a hard object splintered against the window. It reverberated through the frame but didn’t break. For what seemed like the longest seconds of my life, I listened as the window shook but didn’t shatter. It was reinforced glass. Lucian took his security seriously. Nobody was supposed to get inside, but it also meant without unlocking it, I couldn’t get outside either.
I gulped breaths through the towel, desperately eyeing the bedroom door as it began to burn from the other side. It wouldn’t be long now. This was no accident. Whoever had tried to kill us came back to finish the job.
A loud crack whistled through the air, and I jolted as glass finally fell to the tile beside me. I tried to stand, but my legs felt like jelly, and when Ace crawled through the window and pulled me up, fear gripped my heart. I tried to ask him about Lucian, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Keep the towel on your face,” he told me. “Hold on.”
He lifted me into his arms and passed me out the window onto the roof of the first story. Ace crawled out behind me, and I looked around, desperate. “Where is he?”
He ignored my question, positioning himself onto the ladder he’d placed and instructing me to follow him down. All I wanted to do was find Lucian, but logically, I knew I couldn’t unless I got down safely. I climbed down the ladder after him, and he helped me onto the grass.
“We need to get away from the house.” He tried to lead me around the front, down the driveway, but I resisted.
“Goddammit.” He grabbed me by the arm. “Do you want me to help him, or not?”
“Yes!” I screamed. “Please.”
“Then you have to fucking do what I say. Go stand with your sister and don’t move. Do you understand?”
I nodded, gulping in breaths of fresh air. Birdie met me at the front of the house, her face frantic. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s going to be okay.”
But it wasn’t. Because I kept staring at the side of the house where Ace disappeared. The entire thing looked like it was engulfed.
“I can’t do this again.” I shook my head. “I can’t do this again.”
I almost collapsed, but Birdie grabbed me and helped me down to the ground. “Just sit there and try to breathe. Ace will find him.”
She sounded so confident, but I wasn’t. Terror had reached its sharp tendrils inside my chest and wrapped around my heart. It was taking too long. Something was wrong. “Where is he?” I demanded. “Where the fuck is he?”
“I’m sorry,” a quiet voice spoke from the shadows. “But Lucian’s not coming.”
My heart leapt into my throat when I turned to find Nolan behind us, a pistol in hand.
“Nolan?” I croaked. “What are you doing?”
He looked right through me. “Stand up.”
Birdie stepped in front of me, and I scrambled to my feet as he pointed the gun right at her face.
“Birdie!”
“I don’t want to shoot her,” Nolan said. “But I will if you don’t do what I tell you.”
“Fine.” I held up my hands. “Fine. Just tell us what you want.”
He pointed back in the direction that we came from. “Walk.”
I grabbed Birdie’s arm and tried to pull her along with me, but she shook her head. “He’s just going to kill us if we follow him.”
Nolan cocked the gun, and the desperation in his eyes told me he was serious.
“Birdie, stop it.” I took her hand in mine and tugged her forward. “Just do what he says.”
She squeezed my hand, trying to convey some unspoken message as we walked back along the edge of the house. I didn’t know what Nolan wanted, but when we reached a freshly broken window in the guest bedroom, it became apparent. He waved the gun toward the frame, which was now fully engulfed in flames. “Get inside.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” Birdie snarled. “You’d have to shoot me before I climbed in there.”
Without warning, Nolan struck out and cracked the gun across Birdie’s face. I screamed in horror as she crumpled to the ground, scrambling to help her, but Nolan wasn’t having it.
“Get up,” he ordered. “And climb into the window.”
“Why are you doing this?” I yelled. “What the hell is wrong with you? Lucian trusted you!”
“I don’t have a choice.” The end of his gun met the skin on my forehead, cold and unforgiving. “Get back into the house.”
It occurred to me then that he didn’t want to shoot me because he wanted to make it look as though we’d died in the fire. That might have bought me some time, if I didn’t also know that he wasn’t past smashing our skulls in and tossing us in the window himself.
