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The thought of Alfie pulling the trigger had my feet moving, Alfie’s gun still held steadily in Bex’s face. I tried not to listen as he continued to talk, spouting some nonsense about trying to turn me straight before he killed me, even though just the snippets of his words had me shivering.
But they also gave me motivation as I tiptoed to my right the last few paces, until I was just behind Alfie as he stood unaware. I was suddenly thankful I hadn’t invested in a wall of mirrors behind my vase display, or Alfie would’ve seen me creeping long before now. Luckily, he remained ignorant to the threat now standing behind him.
That’s how I felt, as I stood behind the man threatening my girlfriend, threatening me, and trying to harm my family. As I lifted Bex’s gun with shaking hands, I felt like a threat. And I liked it.
“Tell me where she is in the next ten seconds, or I shoot.” Alfie’s voice came out hard, his grip on the gun tight enough that his shoulders flexed with the movement. He was no longer calm and collected; he looked desperate, like this was his last chance, and I figured he knew it was. Either he came out of this interaction successful, having taken out the close friend of a business rival, or he would be dead. Those were the options. Even I knew them, a pacifist florist who had never hit a person in my life, much less shot one.
“It’s okay,” Bex tried to reason with Alfie, palms out, voice turning gentle as she pleaded. I frowned at the desperation in her voice, knowing Bex would never beg a man like Alfie, only realizing she was speaking to me when her eyes flicked to mine for a moment over his shoulder. Thankfully, Alfie wasn’t the tallest, allowing Bex to see my position behind him. “We’ll figure something out. You don’t have to do this.”
It was sweet, heroic even, that Bex would allow herself to be put in further danger to save me the trauma of shooting someone. She’d been the one pushing me away for so long, telling me I didn’t belong because I was too kind, too sweet. And now, when given the opportunity to prove that I trulybelongedto this group of people I’d begun to see as my family, she wanted me to back down.
Even without her saying anything, even with her eyes trained on Alfie’s so he didn’t sense me as I stood behind him, I knew what Bex was trying to say. That this could forever change me. That she liked me as I was. That I didn’t have anything to prove. That we’d figure out something that wouldn’t require violence on my part.
And it was that, the acknowledgment that she’d rather risk her safety than cause me any sort of pain, that had me lowering the gun from its aim at Alfie’s head. Bex’s shoulders relaxed subtly, her small smile both a relief and a goodbye, all at once.
“We’ll figure something out,” she repeated, but her voice lacked conviction now, and I hated the partially-defeated look on her face.
“No need,” I reassured her. Then I lifted the gun back up and pulled the trigger.
Chapter25
Bex
For all herinitial bravado regarding her bravery and insistence on learning how to shoot a gun, Wren puked almost immediately after shooting Alfie. Thanks to Alfie interrupting my cleaning, the compost bin was still out and readily available, which meant there wasn’t any additional clean-up.
My first instinct was to comfort my little bird, who could be collapsing as a result of trauma or shock at any moment. Unfortunately, I was busy wrestling Alfie’s gun away from him, his grip weakened as a result of the bullet embedded somewhere in his shoulder, courtesy of Wren. The bullet had caught Alfie off guard, the pain sending him staggering forward while his gun fell to his side, and I was determined to make sure that mistake would be his last.
I twisted the gun out of his grip, kicking his legs from underneath him in a move Dev taught me at our latest sparring session. He fell on his injured shoulder with a grunt, but he still scrambled, trying to find his footing to make another move. This fucking bug didn’t know how to die, and I relished the idea of squishing him under my boot slowly, making him understand what a mistake he made threatening Wren, threatening the people who had accepted me into their family despite my reticence.
I took my time crushing his hand under the toe of my boot, enjoying the snap of his bones. What I liked even more were the cries that shot up in intensity, the tears welling in the back of Alfie’s eyes. I frowned at his response. Pathetic. What kind of person who worked in our world couldn’t take a broken hand? I’d broken various bones sparring over the years and never once cried.
Wren’s heaves cut into my thoughts, forcing me to pause the slow torture I planned on inflicting on Alfie.
“Look away, lovely,” I said to her gently.
A low groan, echoed in the plastic container of the compost bin, was her only response, but it was enough of a reassurance to have me lifting my gun and sinking a bullet into Alfie’s brain. It would’ve been cathartic to take out all my anger on him, but Wren came first.
I didn’t bother checking to be sure Alfie was dead. The hole in his head was enough to convince me of Wren’s safety. If he survived that, he wouldn’t survive the blood leaking out of his body at a rapidly increasing pace. I grabbed a few paper towels Wren kept on a low shelf near her workspace, throwing them around Alfie’s body haphazardly.
“That would make a great commercial,” Wren joked weakly from across the room, where she’d abandoned the compost bin and climbed atop the counter in a slump. She adopted a presenter’s voice, though it shook slightly as she spoke. “Do you have a pool of blood that needs cleaning? Look no further than our extra-absorbent paper towels!”
I chuckled as I threw down the last few pieces of paper towel. She wasn’t wrong; the paper towels were working surprisingly well. It wasn’t the first time I’d had to clean up a pool of blood, but I usually didn’t use name-brand paper towels. Wren was a brand snob, insisting the green-packaged paper towels were better, and after this experience, I’d have to agree.
After finishing my paper towel barrier, I picked my way across the floor, hopping up on the counter next to Wren and pulling her to my side. She was shivering slightly, cheek clammy where it rested against my upper arm.
“Are you okay, lovely?”
“I’m fine, it’s just -”
“I know.” I rubbed a hand up her arm, trying to get some warmth to seep back into her skin. “It’s a lot, what you did.” I shook my head, jaw clenching as I recalled the determination in her eyes. The relief I felt when she dropped the gun to her side, the mixture of worry and pride when I realized she’d only done it to click off the safety. “You didn’t have to do that. I never want you to put yourself in danger, force yourself to forgo your morals for me.”
“He had a gun to your head, Bex!”
“I know!” I burst out, softening my voice when Wren winced at the anger in my tone. “I know. But I care more about you than my safety. I want you to be able to look at yourself in the mirror after this.”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“You threw up in a compost bin, and you’re shivering, Wren. You’re likely going into shock from the trauma of what you just did.”
