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Suddenly, another bullet whizzed inches from us, and my heart plummeted. Augustus scrambled toward the closest assailant and engaged him in a fierce battle. He jabbed his fists mercilessly into his attacker’s face, causing a stream of blood to trickle down. I watched, frozen in fear as he wrestled the gun away from the assailant’s grasp and pointed it straight at him.
I didn’t have time to see Augustus shoot the man, because another attacker pounded the gravel toward me, and I sucked in a deep breath before fighting him. Adrenaline coursing through me, I threw punches and kicks with a ferocity I didn’t even know I had, a desperation fueled by the sight of Atticus motionless on the concrete and Christine captured in their grip.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Augustus shoot and another man went down, but three more swarmed him. We were outnumbered, and my body and spirit ached from the barrage of attacks, my stitches barely hanging on. Gunshots were ringing through the air, and then, a low scream like a lion’s roar filled the space.
I pushed into the attacker with all my might, sending him reeling with a blow to his face. I stepped forward, ready to fight again—for Christine—when Augustus shouted for me to move. Two shots blasted in quick succession, and two more bodies hit the ground.
I heard a yelp of terror from the assailant standing closest to me. Stiffening, I looked past him and saw a nightmarish sight: a figure dressed in glistening crimson, standing in the entrance to the porch. It was hard to tell if it was man or beast, but two menacing pistols were clenched in its grasp and pointed without wavering at the assembled assailants. Its voice rasped in a half-choked, almost insane rasp. “Run, you bastards!” it bellowed before unleashing a torrent of thunder-blasts toward us. Bullets ricocheted off the trees, sparks flying, as we scrambled for safety. In mere moments, the assailant’s bullets had carved a swath of destruction around us, leaving only pools of blood and slumped over corpses in their wake.
Augustus and I dove to the ground, our bodies shaking with fear. We could hear him taking out each person one by one, and each time the sound of a gunshot boomed through the air, our hearts dropped. When everything had gone silent, I cautiously looked up and saw Augustus motionless on his back. His eyes were bloodshot and wide with terror. He was alive but had taken a lot of damage from the fight. His clothes were drenched in sweat and splattered with blood. I couldn’t help but feel like this was the end for us both.
I sprung up, my heart hammering against my chest, and locked eyes with the rugged man standing on the front porch. I felt like I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t place him.
Augustus was the first to realize who he was. “Hudson!” he exclaimed.
The pieces started to fit together in my brain. He was Atticus’s right-hand man, sent to protect my family as soon as he heard about the impending danger. How could I have been so stupid? I had been so wrapped up in saving myself that I hadn’t thought about them.
With a burst of energy, I rushed over to him, desperation gripping my heart in an icy embrace. “Where is my mother and Daphne?” I shouted, barely able to keep myself upright. Blood coated my clothes, and the metallic tang hung heavy in the air.
“They’re hiding in the pantry,” Hudson gritted.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Fuck,” I choked out. “Thank you.”
Augustus’s sobs echoed around us, and I whipped around to see him throwing himself toward Atticus. I had to make sure he was still alive. I desperately dropped back down, finally heaving a sigh of relief when I felt his pulse beating beneath my fingertips. He was alive. And then his eyes opened, and he looked up at me with a tender and eerily calm look.
“Christine?” he breathed out, his voice barely audible.
“They have her,” Augustus replied, shaking his head in disbelief as tears streamed down his face. “They have Christine.” The fear on both of their faces was apparent, yet the last shred of hope that lingered in their eyes was undeniable. In the midst of danger and death, we had to find a way. “We need to get you to a hospital,” Augustus added desperately.
Without hesitating, I wrapped Atticus’s arm around my shoulder and pulled his body up from the cold ground. His breathing was labored, each breath ragged and uneven. His face was stained with blood from a deep gash in his chest, and I could feel the pain radiating from him with each step we took forward.
“Where are we going?” Hudson asked.
“We’re taking him to a hospital,” I said. “Grab my mother and Daphne.”
“They could come back,” Hudson argued. “They’ll be expecting you to go to the hospital.”
I growled. “I don’t care, and we can’t stay here.”
The realization that I was putting my entire family in danger by bringing Atticus to the hospital hit me hard, but I had no choice.
Hudson ran off to do my bidding, and Augustus took the opportunity to wrap Atticus’s other arm around his shoulder, each of us gritting our teeth against the pain and helping each other navigate through the area. The pain Atticus felt was evident, the hollow look in his eyes only adding to the fear that hung over us all. I had never seen him scared before, and it shook me to the very core.
We painfully lowered his body onto the back seat of the car, and he groaned in agony.
“How bad is it?” I cried out in terror.
“It’s okay,” Augustus tried to reassure us through gritted teeth and clenched jaw.
“No, it isn’t,” Atticus whispered painfully. “She’s gone.” Atticus grabbed my arm and pulled me urgently toward him, his grip tight and unyielding. “You need to go after Christine.” His blood was soaking everything in sight, the metallic smell drifting in the air. His face was so pale and ghostly, like a white sheet of paper. We had no time to spare.
“I will,” I swore as I felt his grasp loosen slowly, and my heart clenched in panic.
Augustus bellowed out a scream of frustration and fear as Atticus’s eyes slowly fluttered closed and his body went limp.
And in true DuPont fashion, Atticus’s last words were a demand.
Chapter Twenty-One
