“When Charlie O’Connell told everyone in my junior year of high school that I’d slept with him and it sucked? I cried and didn’t want to go back to class and you tied Charlie naked to the flagpole in front of the school until he admitted he lied. Oh, and you waited until everyone had seen him.”
His head drops.
“Or when Raven died?” Tears still flood my eyes when I think about my horse. He’d been my friend for eleven years, even longer than Wyatt. “You stayed with me in the stable with him until the vet put him to sleep. Dad- I mean, thesperm donorwanted Raven cut up and carted off. I cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, you’d borrowed a backhoe and you and the groundskeepers buried him over by the cherry trees. You even got him a little headstone. That wasn’t just thejob.”
With a deep sigh, Wyatt puts his gun on the bench, rises and begins stacking boxes close to us.
“What are you doing?”
“Mr. Cavendish’s orders were specific. He wanted a fire. Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing.”
Chapter Forty
In which Mason chooses violence. Afton does not.
Mason…
The jet finally lands and my tracking app pops up instantly. My hand’s shaking as I watch the signal grow stronger and stop, blinking insistently.
Dad looks over my shoulder. “Isn’t that one of our warehouses over by the River Clyde shipyard? I’ll contact the closest soldiers to the location and call the night watch at the docks. It’s not easy to hide there.”
Eight of us, bristling with guns, squeeze ourselves into the helicopter.
“I’ll get you there as fast as I can, gentlemen,” the pilot says. “I’m going around a high air traffic route, it’ll end up saving us time.”
“What do you know?” Michael asks me.
“The signal stopped in the north warehouse.” My voice is calm, emotionless but inside, the bloody red part of me is screaming and gibbering. “It’s a thirty-minute drive from the house, whoever took her wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself by speeding, so they’ve been there less than ten minutes.”
Michael pulls out his phone, checking a text. “There’s eight men surrounding the building. There’s no sign of movement, though there’s a light coming from the left side of the building. I dinnaethink we store a lot there right now, so there’s less cover for whoever took Afton.”
“It’s an industrial area,” I tell the pilot, “so the sound of a helicopter isn’t unusual. Landing though, is going to be much louder.”
Checking his map, he says, “I can drop you on the rooftop of a building about two hundred meters away. The shipping noise from the docks will cover most of it.”
***
Afton…
When Wyatt turns to pick up another box, I lurch to my feet, and manage the clumsiest possible takedown. Driving my head into his stomach, I slip my left arm under his right knee and yank upwards, sending him onto his back. The only reason it works is because he wouldneverexpect it from me. He’s only a second or two behind me as we both lunge for the gun on the bench. I just barely beat him, firing the first bullet over his shoulder.
“Stop, Wyatt! Just listen to me. You can come back from this. I’m still alive. You’re still alive. Look, we’ll walk out of here together, all right?”
He doesn’t try to grab the gun, he stands there, arms loose at his sides. “Your MacTavishes should be here soon, hopefully one will just shoot me. But I’ll deserve torture.”
“So, this is a suicide run? Do you hear yourself?” My arms are shaking, it’s a heavy gun and whatever he dosed me with is stubbornly keeping my muscles as weak and loose as overcooked spaghetti. “You don’t want to live after killing me but you’re still going to kill me? Mason went after my fath- after Cavendish. He knows where he is in Belfast and I’m certain that Cavendish is already dead.
“I could shoot you, Wyatt. Right now, I could choose violence like everyone else in our world. But do you know what’s worse? I’m going to keep you alive so you have to make it up to me.” I lower the gun to my side. “I don’t kill the people I love.”
There’s genuine anguish on his face. “It’s too late, Afton. I’m sorry.”
“Wh- what do you mean?”
“The charge is on a timer.”
Chapter Forty-One
In which Mason’s dad has never been prouder of him. This upsets Mason.
