Is this it? Is this where it ends?On my fucking knees in front of this motherfucking bastard.
I taste blood and the bitter, humiliating truth of it—he finally got me where he wanted me. Fucker.
He lifts a blade, the metal catches the spotlight and sends a shard of cold light across my vision.
This is it.
This—
A crack splits the air.
Then another. Distant at first, then closer.
The crowd turns as one, smoke curls beneath the doors. Boots. Shouts. The thundering rhythm of breach charges and assault fire. Sterling’s head snaps toward the entrance. “Get those?—”
Boom.
The hall’s main doors explode inward in a spray of splinters and steel. Gunfire tears through the vaulted chamber. Screams echo off the marble.
Beautiful, goddamn chaos.
I laugh—or try to. It shreds through my lungs, comes out as a raw, blood-soaked wheeze. Pain rips through my chest andblood splashes across my lips before I spit more on the floor. My head sags forward, chains dragging against the collar.
“F—fuck you…” I mutter toward the blur of Sterling at the podium.
The guards surrounding me pivot, weapons raised.
“NO!”
I feel her before I understand what’s happening—small arms locking around my ribs, her chest pressed to mine. Her breath hits my neck in sharp, panicked bursts. My head drops against her shoulder. I try to lift my arms—try to shield her—but the chains bite deeper, metal grinding into open wounds.
“Kitten…” My voice shreds itself against her collarbone. “You have to go. You can’t…you can’t be here. You can’t?—”
“I’m not leaving you,” she chokes out.
She’s trying to cover me.
A human shield. My little one putting her body between me and a hailstorm of bullets.
It guts me.
“Arlo—please! You can’t die for me. Don’t—don’t do this. Don’t you fucking do this.”
Gunfire cracks again—so close sparks dance across the marble. She jerks violently, screaming.
The sound tears through me.
Not like pain.
Not like rage.
Like annihilation.
She folds lower, curling around me, her fingers shaking as they dig into my skin. “I’m okay. I’m okay—it’s just—it’s just my shoulder—don’t move. Please don’t move, please don’t?—”
No. No. No!
That’s all it takes. That scream. Her pain. Her blood on my chest. Her tears on my throat. Something detonates inside me—the last flicker of the monster they made me, the last spark of the weapon Valcross carved out of bone and suffering.
