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Shock whipped through me, stilling me in place even after she stepped back. I couldn’t figure out why a Keane was helping me and why she hadn’t told me the truth earlier rather than giving me a vague I’m trying to help. I couldn’t figure out if I was truly supposed to believe her or not—it felt like I was getting whiplash with the way my hope kept blooming and dwindling.
But despite my hesitation, I reached out for her, grasping her arm and taking a step with her just as neon red rounded a corner at the far end.
“Oh God,” I breathed as I took a staggering step away.
Autumn grabbed my hand before I could make it any farther, her tone shifting to forced irritation. “For fuck’s sake. Do I really have to get one of the rooms to have a second of privacy?”
“Privacy?” Lachlan growled. “Did you miss the power being cut? And who the fuck is that?”
“A distraction. Get your own,” Autumn answered easily.
I let my head tip ever so slightly to the side when Lachlan’s neon expression remained fixated just past his sister—on me—giving him the same slanted look he usually gave me.
“You and your distraction need to look around. Those assholes came for retaliation. They came for that girl,” Lachlan said as he started toward us, that disturbing stare never leaving me. “Don’t let any of them live.”
“Okay, Dad,” she said sarcastically, her grip on me tightening as he passed us in the hall. But then he was stalking away from us, and Autumn was rushing me in the same direction we’d been taking earlier, and that hope exploded. Whatever her plan was, it felt attainable.
We’d made it through being stopped by her dad and Lachlan...we could make it to wherever the goal was.
But I should’ve known better than to let myself believe we’d done it. That we could make it outside without any hang-ups.
Because there was a distinct glow that grew brighter the closer we got to the end of the hall. And as we turned the corner, my stomach dropped when I saw a red mask, listed just enough to send chills racing down my spine.
Beside the man sat a mountain of a dog, patiently waiting for a command.
“Autumn,” Lachlan muttered, his bored tone and relaxed stance somehow deepening my dread.
“No one lives, I know,” she said as if she’d had to repeat the words dozens of times. “Maddox already told me.”
I stared in bemusement, unable to comprehend for a second too long that the man we’d just run into wasn’t the one in front of us.
Logically, I understood more than one of them could have the same mask. But they sounded the same. In the dark of the hall, with only the neon lighting our forms, they had identical builds. And now I was wondering if any of the times I’d had an encounter with Lachlan, it had been his brother instead.
A hum of acknowledgment rumbled from Lachlan as he held a hand toward his sister. “Hatchet.”
Autumn’s grip on me turned painful as a stilted laugh left her. “Kinda need it.”
“Is that right?” Lachlan challenged just as yells sounded in different parts of the building. With another hum, he lifted a bat with the other hand, sending me spiraling as dizzying flashes from that night a year ago assaulted me. “Of everyone, I never thought you would betray us...betray me. Give me your hatchet—I know it’s on you.”
“Run,” Autumn whispered, but then she was stumbling into me with a surprised grunt of pain as Lachlan said, “I’d rather Ms. Bennett stayed.”
“And I’d rather y’all go fuck yourselves and die,” Autumn yelled as she hurled herself at Lachlan, swinging at him just as he did the same.
Her scream filled the hall a second before wood and metal clattered to the floor, and then she was hunching over on herself and cradling her arm.
With a low whistle, Lachlan pointed at me and gave the same order as earlier: “Danger.”
One nearly inaudible word. But it was all it took for his dog to take a defensive position. Growling and snapping at me when I shifted the smallest bit.
“Don’t make me kill you, Autumn,” Lachlan practically begged as he lifted the bat again.
A crazed-sounding laugh left her. “But Sean could’ve, and that would’ve been okay?”
Lachlan’s bat dipped enough to show her words had caught him off guard, but Autumn continued, yelling and seething at him, before he could speak.
“They can’t choose my life for me. You can’t choose her life for her,” she said, swinging an arm at me. “I deserved more than that asshole who got off on destroying me and killing anyone I looked at, and she deserves more than you.”
“You could’ve told me.”
