“Good.” Dan gives a firm nod. He seems genuinely glad. His eyes dart to Jack. “Your turn, brother. Do youloveLeo Snow?”
“Yes,” Jack bites out before the question can completely leave Dan’s mouth, shocking the hell out of me. I gape at him, uncomprehending. He stares back at me, that fear and pain still there in his expression alongside another emotion. One I can’t name, because it’s too complex and profound, and I’m pretty sure we don’t have a word for it in the English language anyway.
Jack tears his gaze away from mine to plead with his brother. “Is that what this is about? You think I left you and shacked up with my new partner? You think I love him, and that means I don’t care about you or something?” He makes a sound, furiously dismissing that notion. “Whatever those fucks at OI told you, it’s bullshit, Dan. You hear me? It’sbullshit.”
“You love him. Good.” Dan nods approvingly, seeming to ignore most of what Jack said. “That’ll make this more exciting for all of us.” He stands there, pent-up and visibly struggling with a mishmash of complicated thoughts and feelings.
What the—
Dan’s finger presses down lightly on the trigger, his gun moving to point directly at my head. If he fires off a shot, there’s no fixing it. Headshot. Bullet to the brain. Done. Gone. Game over.Fuck.
Jack’s grip on his gun tightens, his own finger pressing a little on the trigger. Dan seems pleased by it, not afraid or even really concerned.
“Your choice, brother.” He shrugs, uncaring about the turmoil he’s causing his twin. “Either you shoot me right now, like you should have done on the roof, or I will fucking murder your boyfriend right here and now in front of you. And no trying to get out of it by shooting me somewhere non-lethal. You know if I’m alive, I’ll be able to get off a shot in time to take him out.” His sneer holds a bitter edge. “I was always faster than you.”
Jack lets out a horrified growl of negation as if banishing the whole scene playing out between us, as if he can will it away with denial and anguish alone.
“Dan,” Jack begs, eyes frantically moving between me and the gun pointing at my head. “Please. I can’t let you hurt him. I can’t. Please, please don’t make me do this. Fucking hell,pleasedon’t make me.”
There’s terror now, real terror. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to get shot in the bloody head. But overall, what I’m most afraid of, however insane it may sound, is the idea of Jack shooting his brother for me, killing him. Again.
He won’t survive it. Not mentally. It’ll destroy him. I thought that before, when it was just in theory, but now it’s a real possibility, I know I’m right. This can’t be allowed to happen. I can’t let it happen.
“You know I’ll do it,” Dan pronounces, dismissing all of Jack’s pleas for mercy. He switches his attention to me again. “I’d say it’s nothing personal, Leo, but that would be an outright lie.” There’s no apology in his voice, the hurt and anger eclipsing whatever else he might be capable of feeling.
I meet his eyes, sympathy curling in my gut for this man, still. He’s been through so much. They both have. OI has done this. They’ve brutalised Dan Roth and made him turn against the only person in the world he’s ever had to care about him, to love him.
“Dan, please! Stop this! Please!” Jack cries, and I can hear the that he’s got tears in his eyes, but I don’t look away from Dan.
“No,” Dan answers, coldly adamant like this is something he has to do, has to get done, can’t walk away from, not even if he wanted to.
Dan keeps eye contact with me, refusing to even glance in his brother’s direction. I can see it in him, the training OI instilled, the same way it did with Jack.
Eyes on the target. Get the job done. Complete the mission. By any means fucking necessary.
I let out a slow breath, telling Dan something I hope he remembers when all this is over, “I forgive you.”
Dan falters for half a second, those familiar green eyes filling with confusion and uncertainty, but it’s too late.
It’s too late. Because.
It’s too late because Jack has already fired off a shot. I saw him pull the trigger out of the corner of my eye, just in time to do something stupid. Something reckless. Somethingright.
The world slows down again. Silence reigns. The air freezes like an invisible ice fog.
Jack’s bullet should hit Dan in the chest, pierce his skin, and detonate his heart.
Instead, it hits me when I throw myself in front of Dan.
Jack’s bullet rips into my flesh, slicing through my cartilage and burrowing in like a rat trying to escape the heated end of a bucket.
I feel myself collapse to the kitchen floor with a loud crash, but the impact doesn’t hurt because I’m too busy dealing with the pain from the bullet. It spreads through my body like my own personal heatwave. I gasp from the ferocity of it, so much more agony than you ever think one little bullet could cause.
I’ve been shot before, so this isn’t an entirely new experience. But it’s like your brain isn’t capable of remembering just how much itfucking hurts. JesusChrist!
“Leo!” Jack yells in a mad panic and rushes over me to, skidding to his knees by my side. “No, no, no! Fuck, no. Leo, God, no!” He sounds manic, that terror from before having somehow increased tenfold, eyes blown so wide they’re practically anime.
He grabs a nearby dishtowel and presses it against the wound in my chest, trying to stem the flow of red pouring out of it like I have an endless supply I can just give away.
