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"Stay low!" Oswin shouted over the noise, his voice steady despite the madness. "This way!"
"Kylo?" I called back, unwilling to leave him behind.
"Right here," he grunted, and a wave of relief washed over me.
"Cover me!" I yelled and drew my own weapon. We returned fire, our shots punctuated by the sound of splintering wood and shattering tile. The air was thick with gunpowder and vengeance.
"Car's this way!" Oswin directed and pointed to a service exit.
Kylo faltered, his breath ragged, and I felt a surge of panic. "Hey, you good?"
"Never better." He shrugged me off.
We burst through the door to the garage. "Car!" Oswin barked, keys already in hand.
"Ansel, come on!" I shouted and the car idled like a caged beast eager to flee. My voice was a desperate pitch against the storm's howl. My eyes met Ansel’s as he stood in the doorway, his feet planted firmly in place.
"Ansel!" I called again, my heart breaking a little more with every millisecond that passed by.
"Did you really think he was yours to command?" The words slithered from my mother, standing defiantly despite the blood staining her clothes. "Ansel has always been under my control."
"Is she right?" I demanded, my grip white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Each second stretched taut, a wire ready to snap.
"Awe, poor thing. You really thought opening your legs and playing family for a day meant something to him?” She spit out the word family like it murdered her firstborn child- me.
"Apologies, Averill," Ansel murmured and a conflicted look etched on his rain-soaked face. "I never wanted?—"
"Save it!" I snarled and betrayal sliced through me sharper than any knife. My heart thudded, a drumbeat of fury and hurt. Trust, once more, had proven to be a fool's currency.
"Go!" Kylo groaned from beside me, his voice laced with pain. "He's made his choice."
The car lurched forward and the tires screamed in protest against the slick pavement. Oswin clutched the backseat, his usual flamboyance now just a shadow in his wide eyes. I could still hear the echo of my mother's mocking laughter, a vile serenade to our retreat.
"Your little band of misfits is falling apart," she taunted from the shadows, her silhouette framed by the jagged ruins of what was once a sanctuary.
"Shut up!" I yelled into the night, but the wind swallowed my words, and left only the bitter taste of rage on my tongue.
"Where to?" Oswin asked again, his voice calm, a stark contrast to the chaos of my thoughts.
"Far away from this mess," I focused on the endless stretch of road ahead. The city lights blurred into streaks as we raced away from the penthouse, from the lies, the ambush...from Ansel.
Kylo' breaths came in shallow gasps, a rhythmic reminder of the urgency that thrummed through my veins. Guilt gnawed at me for dragging him into this, for being the eye of the storm that now threatened to consume us all.
"Stay with me, Kylo," I whispered and dared to glance at his ashen face.
"Always," he managed, a ghost of a grin on his lips, but his eyes were heavy, weighed down by pain and loss.
“I can't believe I fell for it," I muttered and anger simmered beneath the surface. "For him."
"Love makes fools of us all," Oswin serenaded me but there was no humor in his tone, only cold truth.
Lightning forked across the sky, a fleeting glimpse of the danger that surely pursued us. I pushed the car faster, urging it to defy the storm, to outrun the night itself. But the dread that curled in my stomach knew better—it was only a matter of time before they caught up.
"Watch out!" Oswin yelled and pointed ahead.
I jerked the wheel as something loomed in front of us, a dark shape that materialized from the rain. A crash, metal on metal, the world spinning—a symphony of sound and fury that drowned out everything else.
And then, there was darkness.
