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I thought back to all the advice I’d been given and all the things I’d learned about myself over the past six or so months, and settled on the most recent thing I could remember: mirroring.
Since Geoff was pointing at me in an accusatory fashion, I slowly raised my hand to mirror him but, instead of pointing, I held my palm open towards him in a “stop” gesture. His gun hand jerked, but when he saw I was unarmed he didn’t point it.
“Geoff,” I crooned. “We can talk about this, can’t we? If we turn the statue over then we are all free of it, and that sounds like good fortune to me. Isn’t that what you want?”
Unconsciously, he lowered his arm, and I mimicked the action. It was subtle, but he widened his stance and closed his empty hand, so I do the same.
“You don’t understand. This is mycalling.This transcends good fortune in the mortal realm. I’ll be in the favor of the gods forever if I complete this task.” Geoff’s voice carried the sound of unhinged devotion, and slowly dawned on me how far gone he was. If Trevor had lived this long, he would be the same. Or worse.
I feared that, with Geoff’s mind so shattered, the tips that Maestro gave me to influence someone’s mind weren't going to work. He crossed his arms, still holding the gun and looking around restlessly. I tried to copy but his moves were erratic and nonsensical. I couldn’t keep up.
“Come on, man.” Gunner tried again, a lot of the heat having left his voice. It’s been replaced with pity. “You’ve got a family. A wife and kids. You don’t have to do this.”
“A family you made me swear to never contact again!” he ranted. “Well guess what? I don’t even want your old, used-up mess of a sister anyway, but just because you thought you had the right to keep me from her, I’m going to let you in on a little secret!”
His smile became cruel, showing yellowed teeth. “Effigy or no effigy, I’m going to kill Rachel Starr, and I know you’ve grown fond of her. With her dead, everything that Trevor owned will revert to me, his loyal business partner. You might have forced my hand into signing everything over to Nellie, but Trevor was a smarter investor than I ever was. With his assets, I’ll start anew.”
“You son of a bitch–” Gunner snapped, and in one fluid movement shifted the statue under his arm and pulled his own pistol, but moving the statue cost him a precious second that Geoff didn’t have to sacrifice.
Which was why when Geoff pointed his gun, he was able to pull off a single shot before Gunner’s bullet took him between the eyes. That single shot left the barrel of the handgun, and before I could even take a breath, I felt it hit me in the side with the force of a car crash. The impact took me off my feet, or maybe my legs buckled in shock, and the last thing I heard before I hit the floor was Gunner’s thundered, “RACHEL!”
Chapter Twenty Four
Gunner
“RACHEL!”
Everyone says that time stands still when horrible things happen, and seeing the bullet hit Rachel made the seconds slow to a crawl.
I’d never moved faster, I’m sure of it. Ignoring the sickening thunk of Geoff’s body collapsing and the more solid sound of the effigy rolling under the desk as I dropped it, I ran to Rachel, kneeling by her prone form with my heart in my throat.
I was not thinking clearly. My thoughts are primal; shake her awake, scream her name until my throat is raw, or even pick her up and run as fast as I can from this place until we are far, far away, but none of those urges would help me now. She was still breathing, and I jerked up her shirt to see where the bullet had hit, desperate to know the extent of her injuries.
My brain came back online when I did so, and instead of the soft skin of her belly, there is only black Kevlar, and a pit on the side where the bullet had hit her. The relief of it all leaves my legs numb and my ears ringing.Of courseshe’s wearing a vest. I had forced her into it this morning after one of my security guards dropped it off at the front desk for her to wear.
She’s okay,I kept telling myself.She’s going to be okay.
Rachel’s eyes fluttered open as I held her in my arms, kneeling on the floor. The shock of it, plus the admittedly intense pain of taking a shot even with Kevlar, must have made her pass out. If she was anything like me, the chaos created by Geoff had made any reasonable thought, like the fact she was wearing the vest in the first place, flee her mind.
“Gunner?” she said weakly, sitting up until perched in my lap instead of spread across it. I didn’t let her go though, not yet. Recollection of the last few minutes dawned on her slowly, the emotions of fear, shock, and anger passing over her face one after the other.
“That bastardshot me!”she shrieked, pawing at her shirt until she too could see the dent in the Kevlar. Then she paled, her eyes fixing on mine like she physically couldn’t look anywhere else. “Oh. And you shot him.”
With her words, I felt the weight of what has just happened. I never wanted to kill Geoff, but knowing that he would have murdered Rachel in cold blood made me not regret it even for a second. Still, a man I had known for years was lying in a pool of his own blood behind me, and I was responsible.
“Yes, I did. It was what had to be done.” I confirmed. I took her chin between my thumb and forefinger, and forced her to keep her eyes on me. “Listen. Close your eyes, and keep them closed until I tell you otherwise, okay? This is no time for bravery or proving to me, yourself, or anyone else that you can handle shit like this. You will never forget it for the rest of your life if you look. So just do what I say, okay?”
There was a second where I thought she was going to argue, but after a shaky breath, she nodded. “Okay.”
I kissed the corner of her mouth. “Close them.”
I left Rachel sitting on the floor with her eyes screwed shut, absentmindedly rubbing her ribs where the bullet had hit. She was going to have a hell of a bruise. Geoff was slumped against the door frame, the blood coming from his head wound having slowed, but the puddle around him was spreading. I heaved, biting the inside of my mouth to keep myself from getting sick. Stupid fucking idiot Geoff, damn him. I could never,evertell Nellie the truth of what happened.
I retrieved the effigy from under the desk, its wrap soaking up blood on the floor, which meant I had to grab it with my bare hands. I expected it to be cold, but it was warm, even pleasantly so, as I pulled it out and stood, turning it back and forth to see it fully.
Holding it, I could almost understand why Geoff and Trevor behaved the way they did. It was … captivating, and having it in my hands made me feel like it was being pulled towards my body. As if I was one side of a magnet, and the statue the other. What a shame that it had been treated so callously all this time, passed from unworthy man to unworthy man, never getting to where it so longed to be. Me, on the other hand—I was worthy. I could help the effigy and the god it represented with ease. I didn’t have to give it up. I could just—
“Gunner,” Rachel asked quietly, voice quavering. “I haven’t heard you move in a few minutes.”
