Now.
I lunge for the hammer, pulse speeding, brain pounding. I hear Jockey spit out a curse, shuffle and grab for me—
I lock my hands around the handle and whip around in the same motion, carrying through toward Jockey’s knee. He’s already above me, already close, but he manages to dodge, staggering backward.
Fuck,fuck—I scramble to my feet, yanking back to swing again. This time, without thinking, I aim for his shoulder. It lands, barely, glancing off his arm. The momentum throws me forward and Jockey to the side, shouting. The hammer bites into plaster, sinking deep in the wall. I struggle to pull it back out, but it’s stuck, it’s fuckingstuck—
Jockey has me by both arms. I shriek as he rips me away from the wall. We’re right beside the gaping space where the projector window used to be, and as soon as we’re out of reach of both it and the hammer, Jockey slams me into the wall.
“You little bitch,” he snarls. “You fucking coy little brat, you really think you can outsmart me? You really think I’m gonna let you escape?”
“Fuck you,” I seethe. “You’re a coward. An abusive, psychotic,stupidmegalomaniac—”
“Yeah?” He barks, grinning again. He steps back, yanking me toward the window. I scream as he shoves me forward and empty space yawns open beneath me, the theatre floor dizzyingly far below. “I’ma coward? Oh, come on, Lexie! Listen to you scream. You think this fall would kill you, huh? When Liam gets here I’ll get to see him lose his shit over your body, your pretty little skull broken open on the floor, huh? That what you want? I’m gonna kill him anyway, I might as well start with you, right?”
“Don’t!” I scream, the word ripping out of me, tearing my throat raw. “Please!” Tears spill down my cheeks, hot and blurry and sudden. I reach for blindly, groping for the hammer, foranything—
“‘Don’t! Please!’” Jockey laughs, fists tightening on my arms. “Do your daughters know their mother is a pussy?”
My hand grazes the jagged fringe of glass left in the sill. Blood spills over my fingers, hot and biting—there, the hammer. I have it by the handle, it’s loose, hanging from the plaster, I’m pulling it free, the sound of footsteps, fast and hard, echoing from the hallway—
Jockey straightens, absently pulling me back over the sill, his head snapping toward the hall. I work the hammer loose as Liam appears in the doorway—he came!—and as Jockey turns back to me, I bring it down against his knee as hard as I can.
Jockey howls, a horrible, animal sound, and I leap away from him, stumbling over my feet. Liam has me in his arms suddenly, completely, the heat of him enveloping me. I close my eyes, just a single instant of pure relief, and wrap my arms around him.
Jockey straightens, face drawn back in agony, sweat beading on his forehead and white visible around his irises. “You fucking idiots,” he seethes, trembling, gripping his thigh.
Liam has the hammer in his hand, his face black with rage. “It’s over, Jockey.” His arm around my waist tightens, and I cling to him. “It’s over.”
“No,” Jockey says, the single word tight and horrible. His hands flicker in the half-light, and in them appears a gun from his waistband. Shaking, pointed right at Liam.
“No!” I step in front of him but Liam sweeps me back, shielding my body with his. “No, don’t! Jockey—”
“Over?” Jockey laughs, a horrible, hysterical sound. Sweat drips down his bloody, swollen face. “Nowit’s over. Finally. You’re done, Liam. You’re so fucking done. Put that shit down.”
Liam splays his fingers, bending to carefully place the hammer on the floor. I realize, with a cold plunge of dread, that if he had a gun, he would have pulled it already.
No.
“Come here,” says Jockey with a jerk of his chin. And to me, when I move, too, “You stay right fuckin’ there, or I blow his head off.”
Liam looks at me, his expression stunningly warm, almost serene, the slightest smile on his lips. He nods once, and I realize, right there, right then, that Liam Dunne has made peace with his death.
To save me.
I can’t breathe.
“Yeah,” Jockey says through a grin. “Right there.”
Liam has stopped across from him. They’re both in front of the broken window, framed perfectly, backlit by a construction lamp on the theatre floor. The gun glints cruelly, and Jockey holds it with astounding steadiness.
“You always thought you were better than me,” Jockey says, a current of real, terrible contempt in his voice. “You and Milo both. It happened so fast that day, didn’t it? You didn’t even know, did you?”
Liam’s expression is utterly calm, almost blank, but these words spark something in his beautiful eyes.
“I did it,” Jockey says with glee. “I shot him. I didn’t mean to, necessarily. We just came with the guns to scare you guys. I was gonna quit on all of you, move over there, work for Connor where I could get the respect I deserved. That was gonna be the last you saw of me that day. Thatshouldhave been the last you saw of me. But, fuck it, you’re a glutton for pain, man, aren’t you? You had to come back. In a way, I’m glad you did.”
Liam says nothing, but his jaw is clenched tight, a muscle ticking there, his fists closed and trembling with barely-contained rage.
