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Nathan came zooming around the corner, and I met him behind Brandon to grab the gun strapped to his hip. Holding the piece out, I glared hotly as Brandon paled ashen.
“Touch it. Just touch this gun like you’re poking a frog in the woods to watch it jump away. Put your fingertip physically on this gun, and I’ll consider what you have to say.”
The silence was tense, and Brandon glared back at me with a fierceness as his jaw ticked wildly. He wouldn’t touch it, I knew. Touching the gun was beyond what he was capable of allowing himself, morally. Seconds ticked by like minutes, and I scoffed when he took a step back.
“You think Ilikethis? You think I don’t understand what a life is worth? I knowexactlywhat a life is worth. Even the most evil piece of shit like Mason doesn’t want to die. Once again, Brandon, I’m the one struggling to clean up yourincompetence, because you clearly don’t understand that every life is worth something different. With enough money, a battered woman can off her husband and be free and heal. In this case, I’ll kill Mason simply because I want to.” Handing Nathan back his gun as I spoke, I cast him a guarded, curious look, but his face was unreadable. “Warn everyone and ready the explosives. And don’t fuck it up with something consequential like a conscience.”
“How can you live with yourself...?” Brandon’s wavering voice scraped my ears painfully.
I strode past him once Nathan nodded curtly. Pausing in front of my chair, I put my hands on my belly, and my baby wiggled softly.
“Because I will still be alive. At least, for a while. I’ve never regretted killing someone, Brandon, and Mason won’t be the first. If you can’t handle that, ask yourself what we’re still doing together.” Turning around, I sat down in my chair a final time, and Brandon’s horrified expression flashed behind my lids when I blinked. “Although, I highly doubt it matters, anyway. What are you going to do? Divorce me? Take my baby? Condemn me until it’s easier to hate me than feel the pain? Tell my baby I’m a monster? No... I willneverlet that happen. I’ll kill us both before I let that happen. You won’tallowcollateral damage of a situation you thoughtlessly caused? That’s what my baby will be if you don’t man the fuck up and accept the consequences of your stupidity. This is what happens when you make decisions based on emotion.”
“Y- you wouldn’t...”
My lip curled in a snarl when Brandon’s voice cracked harshly, and he sank to his knees, shaking his head in disbelief.
“I’ll protect my baby, even if it means she’ll never take a breath. And I won’t regret it because I won’t be around to. Every choice you’ve made, you refuse to confront the problem. You skirt around it, avoid it. Well, try avoiding it now.” Whirling my wheelchair around, I rolled myself away with what little strength I had left. Rounding the corner, I managed to push myself a few more feet before my arms just gave out completely. Shivering wildly, I rubbed my bump as my own words echoed in my head and hardened my heart. For a moment, tears pricked my eyes at the loss of so much beauty and potential, but I quickly wiped them away with trembling hands.
Taking a shuddering, stabilizing breath, I closed my eyes tightly before shirking off the heavy weight on my shoulders.
“Katie—” Nathan almost ran over me in his haste to catch up to me, and I tensed before he held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not gonna chew you out. Promise. You’re right, as much as it sucks. We’re past the point of no return.”
“What do you want, then? Are you going to say I was too harsh?” I could see it on his face that Nathan was carefully choosing his words, but he quickly shook his head.
“I just wanted to say... I know I’ve been suspicious of you in the past, but with Mason, I trust your opinion completely. Brandon doesn’t understand the logistics, but I do, and I know that if soldiers die here, they’ll be considered war heroes and buried with full honors. They’ll be doing their duty, what they’re trained for— what they signed up for. You don’t get deployed without running the risk of dying. But also... I’m going with you.” Nathan straightened his shoulders a bit, and my heart leapt into my throat at the dead-set determination that drenched his features. “I fucked up. I know that. But you can’t go alone, and I can’t let you go alone.”
“... Thank you, Nathan.”
He nodded, slowly taking hold of the wheelchair grips to begin pushing me, and I rubbed my face with both my clammy hands.
“You’re a good sniper, right?”
“I’ve got time to get a few shots in. What range?”
Blustering a breath through my lips, I slumped in my seat with a soft groan.
“The storm rolling around us is heading to California.”
“Ah... I’d say six-hundred yards or less. Mason wouldn’t want to meet anywhere populated because that means cameras. He’d want somewhere open so he could monitor it easy. Chances are you won’t be the only bird perched.” Pinching the bridge of my nose as an ache sprung up behind my eyes, I shook my head wildly. “Do you think I was too harsh?”
“... I think Brandon doesn’t have the wiggle room anymore to learn at his own pace. Everyone has a baptism by fire as they enter the real world, and this is the thing his money has always kept him from experiencing. He’ll come around, Katie. It might take him a bit, but he will.”
But I didn’t believe Nathan one iota, even if I was too tired to say so.
ChapterTwelve
BRANDON
“How dare you take her side on this! Didn’t you hear her!” Throwing my arms out just to release some energy, I sawredas Nathan paused at the hallway intersection. I trembled with rage and disbelief beyond what I thought any human could handle, but he was cool and collected as he turned to me. “She threatened to kill our baby and herself! Who the fuck do you think you are telling her you trust her!”
“Stop yelling.”
Nathan’s voice was deep, rough, hitting my square in the chest like a brick wall, and I stopped short. I almost choked on the dense lump in my throat, and his face pinched as his eyes narrowed on me.
“The closest you came to meeting Mason was when he shot us up. What makes you more qualified to make decisions about how to deal with him than her? Does her being pregnant make her stupid as well as weak?”
“We— well, no, but—”
