AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“H— had to,” Leo sobs. “F— For Alix. They said… They said… They…”
It’s too terrible, what Jonas and Ansel said they would do to a defenseless child. “They can’t hurt her anymore,” I say.
“T— tell Alix…”
“I will.”
“I l— l— l...”
“You love her, I know.”
“You. I l— l— love…”
I’m sobbing too. “I love you too.”
He squeezes my fingers with all the strength of a ghost. He slips his hand from mine. He knocks his knuckles against the knife’s grip.
He dies.
40
TRAP
* * *
Idrape a blanket over Alix’s shoulders as the red and blue lights pull up to the house. She doesn’t seem to remember what to do with it, so I pull it close under her chin. I help her over to one of the dining room chairs and make sure she’s covered after she sits.
Before I open the front door, I tap my phone, turning the goddamn lights back on.
My head is pounding, and I can’t see out of my right eye, and there isn’t an inch of my body that isn’t bruised. I’m bleeding from where the zip ties cut into my wrists and ankles, and from the long, shallow gash where the carving knife slipped. My clothes are torn, and one shoe is missing, and my ears are still muffled from the echo of gunshot.
But I’m the person in the best shape, among all of us.
Ansel Herzog is dead, his naked back flayed by my shotgun blast.
Jonas Herzog is dead, half his head blown off from Alix’s shot.
Leo Key is dead, a knife still buried in his gut.
Alix is cut and bruised and shaking like a newborn fawn, as naked as the day she and her fucking brother were born. She’s staring at the chair where they tied her, eyes unfocused on the dark stain on the seat, and I’m willing to bet she doesn’t smell her piss, or the Herzogs’ shit, or any of the salt-copper blood that floods the fucking room.
When she killed Klaus, there was no question we would cover up the crime. She wasn’t going to pay a price for executing the shitbag who did his best to destroy her.
Tonight is different.
Tonight the bad guys came after us.
They gave us everything they had, tried every move they knew. In the end, it wasn’t enough, because Alix Fucking Key is the strongest woman I’ve ever met in my life.
We’re not hiding from the cops tonight.
Tonight we tell the fucking truth.
41
ALIX
* * *
