AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Then please enlighten us,” Edgar snarls.
Eve takes a deep breath, her narrow shoulders rising and falling. “I killed Joel.”
“No.” The word is out of my mouth before I can stop it. I lunge forward to grab Eve, but she moves out of my reach.
“I killed him,” Eve said. “Because he tried to assault me, and I didn’t want him to own me. He was a horrible man, and I’d kill him again if I was given the chance.”
My chest feels like it has been cracked open. The world around me is chaotic and unrecognizable, and I have no way to bring it back into focus.
Edgar is yelling something and the room is a flurry of voices and movement. Then, my vision clears, focusing on the only thing that matters: two Cartel guards are moving towards Eve.
One of the men clamps his hands on Eve’s arm, but before the second guy can, I run forward and pound my fist into his nose.
Blood spurts out and the man yells, falling back.
The second guard lets Eve go to focus on me. I kick him in the stomach and am about to crack his kneecap backward when Edgar claps his hands the way he has all week long. I turn and see him with his arm around Eve’s throat.
“Touch anyone else, and I’ll kill her,” he says.
Just to be sure I know he is serious, he pulls a concealed weapon from inside his jacket.
I stumble away from the guard and back into the crowd. They step back to form a large circle around me.
I only realize when I reach up to wipe the sweat from my forehead that my mask is gone. It is lying on the floor near the bloody guard. It must have fallen off during the fight.
Edgar instructs the bloody guard to call more soldiers to keep watch over the room and then leads Eve towards the entrance hall. I move to follow, but three fresh guards appear, weapons lifted and at the ready.
Eve looks back at me once as she is dragged from the room, and then she is gone.
Hopelessness spreads in my chest, along with a kind of gnawing desire to do something, anything.
I can’t watch her be taken from me again.
I can’t let this happen.
I spin in a circle, trying to understand my options. I’ve been mapping the inn since the moment I arrived, memorizing windows and exits and potential weapons, but all of that information seems to be inaccessible to me now. Now that Eve is gone and our entire plan is in jeopardy, I’m panicking.
I don’t usually panic. Years of training have taught me to remain cool under pressure. But right now, I’m losing my shit.
That is when I see Rian Morrison standing in the corner.
Her eyes are wide, mouth hanging open.
My mask is gone.
I understand the importance of that now.
Rian Morrison knows who I am. She recognizes me, and she knows who Eve is to me, and she knows why I’m here.
She darts from the corner to a nearby guard. He looks at me as she speaks, and the fog in my brain seems to lift for a moment.
The guard gestures to his friends by the door and they all move in at the same time. But just as the men get within arm’s reach, I spin around and grab the fireplace poker from the stand behind me. I plunge it through the nearest guard’s chest, grab his weapon, and kick him back.
Time feels like it is moving in slow motion, but I know I only have precious seconds before I’m killed. I lift the man’s gun to my shoulder and take aim at the second closest guard, hitting him straight between the eyes. The man drops to the floor, dead.
I know people around me are screaming and hiding, but I don’t hear them. Don’t see them.
I’m only focused on the threats to my life and, by extension, Eve’s life.
