AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You do it.” I don’t have the coordination to operate a phone right now.
“I need to check the farm, make sure there’s no one else waiting to ambush us. You’re clearly in no state to help with that. Pick up the phone and call Galen, now.”
My fingers curl around the phone. And even though I know the answer to the question, I ask anyway. Because I’m hoping for a miracle, for another, less insane explanation for what just went down.
“Who was that girl who shot Claudia?”
“That,” Antony sighs, “was the real Mackenzie Malloy.”
Claudia
I open one eye.
Bad idea. Sharp pain tears along my body. My temples throb like I’ve been in a mosh pit with a herd of methed-up elephants. I squeeze my eyes shut again.
“Ssssh.” A warm hand touches my cheek. “Don’t try to move. You’ve been shot.”
“Excellent assessment of the situation, Captain America.” Galen chuckles. “I see medical school in your future.”
Eli. Eli’s here.
My eyes fly open. Everything glares at me in Technicolor, the whole lit up like the Vegas Strip. A violet sunrise, the color so bright it nearly breaks my heart, streaks across the sky, outlining the faces of Eli and Noah. White-hot pain twists in my gut as I think about what I’ve put them through.
Or maybe that’s the bullet wound in my chest. Hard to say.
I’m alive. I’m alive to feel pain.
They saved me.
Fingers trace my cheekbone and cup my jaw. Something in the desperation of that touch drags me from my daze. It all rushes back to me. Gizmo finding Brutus in the shack. Him making me that absurd offer and admitting what he did to me. I ask Noah for the gun. I tell Eli to leave, but he doesn’t. The wanting in my veins to draw out Brutus’ death, to make him suffer for all the pain he caused my parents, for the years I’ve relieved the nightmare of that coffin, for the locked box of his violations I still carry with me.
My father’s words buzz in my skull.
Only those you love can truly betray you.
It turns out, Daddy knows what he’s talking about. I didn’t love my uncle Brutus, and so he doesn’t deserve my special attention. If I allow myself to become twisted with vengeance, I lose sight of what’s important.
Family.
The family I have clawed together from the shreds of my stolen life. No sooner had I ended Brutus’ life with a bullet than someone started shooting. Eli’s lips touch mine, his heart beats against my chest. It’s not a dream. I’m shot, and Eli is here, he’s mine…
Gabriel’s face appears upside down in my vision. He strokes my hair and kisses my eyelids, and I breathe in that sultry pagan scent of his and wonder if maybe I have died and gone to heaven because he’s so perfect, he’s my fallen angel redeemed.
But no – when I die, heaven won’t be my destination.
“You’re the luckiest wench I’ve ever treated,” Galen says. “Your shoulder wound is superficial – the bullet merely grazed the skin. And your stomach...the bullet must have caught you on a ricochet, because it didn’t have enough velocity to go all the way through you. It missed your intestinal wall by a millimeter and your spleen by even less. I scooped the bastard out, and as long as you don’t run off to join the circus any time soon, you’re going to be okay.”
Lucky, huh? I try to sit up, but my shoulder burns and it feels like a pack of hyenas are playing Twister on my chest. I fall back against the cushions, gasping for air.
“Give her some space,” a familiar voice says. Galen leans back, and I see George’s face peering out from behind him, her eyes wide and skin deathly pale in the rising sun.
“Why are…” More details of the night flood back to me. I remember leaving George and Gabriel behind at Malloy Manor. They shouldn’t be here… and who’s looking after Queen Boudica? Who’s guarding the house against another break-in?
“When the call came in, Galen picked me and George up on his way.” Gabriel’s silken voice trembles. “He knew we’d want to be here. Tiberius is watching Queen Boudica.”
“But why George—”
“Galen didn’t say what had happened, so we thought you might need her particular skills.” Gabriel’s fingers lace in mine, and he squeezes tight enough to hurt. “It turns out, little George here has the makings of a top-notch medical examiner. While Eli nursed you after your surgery, she and Galen got funky with your uncle Brutus.”
