I almost start sobbing when I hear him begging me to run back. He stirs and struggles to get up on his knees. I rush toward him, aching to feel him in my arms. But someone grabs him from behind, and Rowan thrashes, the fight in him almost gone.
With no time to think, I lift the gun, pointing it at the man’s head. I breathe in, and with my exhale, the bullet goes out. The man stops for a second, seeing me, realizing I’m targeting him. Showing me I missed.
Fuck.
I hiss and take more steps forward, gripping the gun firmly with both hands.
Bang.
Bang.
Rowan collapses on top of him as they both fall down. The well of despair inside me is infinite—it feels as though it gobbles everything it its path.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Rowan.Rowan!”
I run to him, falling to my knees. I set the gun down and take his face in my trembling hands. He winces in pain, somehow unlocking his hand from behind his back. When he brings it above mine, it looks broken. Dislocated. Tears swell in my eyes at the sight of him—bloodied and beaten up like I’ve never seen him before.
“Angel…” He forces the word out. “What did you do?”
“You bastard. You goddamn bastard,” I cry, softly placing my palms against his chest.
Cole crouches next to me, inspecting him. “God fucking dammit, Rowan.”
He coughs and coughs, and shivers from what seems to be nothing but unbearable pain through the lengths of his body. Around us, the smoke has dispersed. Dead bodies form a sinister carpet on the concrete—I don’t recognize anyone. But there, right up against the farthest wall, I recognize the eyes that keephaunting me in my nightmares. Cam holds a gun to Salister’s face, while Maddox and the Secret Service surround the scene, ready to strike at any moment.
“Camelia,” Salister—herfather—says tenderly. “We’ve missed you in Velum. You were always such a character.”
She shakes her head slowly, her eyes piercing as they lock into his. “I grew up at The Hive. You know that. You sent me there… to whore myself out.”
Behind her, Maddox stiffens, barely containing himself. He wants him dead. In fact, not a single soul in this room wants this man to still be alive.
“I sent you…” he says, extending a hand forward to brush her cheek with his knuckles. She dodges it, and there’s no hurt on his face at the gesture, as if he expects it. “So you could be strong. So you could make something of yourself. And look at you now.” He smiles. “First Lady of the United States of America. You should thank me, really. If you had been just a little bit loyal to our cause, you would’ve inherited everything. Quite frankly, my dear, you would’ve had the world at your fingertips.”
She lets out a bitter laugh, and the gun sways in her grasp.
“Thankyou?” She flinches as if the memories are hitting her like physical blows. “Thank you for torturing my friends? For tormenting us? Thank you for letting my mother die, and for corrupting the country with dangerous ideologies that make people afraid to speak their minds?” Her voice rises, trembling as her chest heaves with the effort of swallowing back tears. “Whatexactlyshould I be thanking you for, Father?”
“For making you into the woman you are.”
The gun’s hammer is pulled back with a click. I tighten my hand around Rowan’s arm.
“It’s okay, angel,” he murmurs. “This isn’t your fight.”
But it became my fight the moment this monster faked my brother’s death. The moment he pulled me away from Rowan,then lured him in here to kill him like a stray dog. It became my fight when Sterling’s mom died of cancer, andhehad the cure to himself all along. When my mom was ambushed on the street and fell into a coma. When I found out about Cam’s tragic past.
“You’ll die today. And when you do, you won’t be seeing my mother’s eyes. Because she’s up there.” Cam motions to the sky with tears in her eyes. “And you’re going straight to fucking hell for everything you’ve done.”
Salister’s eyes close, as if he’s voiding his mind of the entire notion that they’re related at all.
“Even if you kill me, Camelia, the EFW will live on. So it has been for centuries, and so it will be for many more. A new ruler was appointed before I was even placed into the role.”
“No,” I say, getting up to my feet and picking the gun back up. “It won’t.”
Rowan’s painful grunt reaches my ears, but he doesn’t object to anything I’m doing otherwise. Everyone turns to look at me, including those eyes that have been haunting me in my nightmares. I walk toward them, forcing myself to smile.
“I would’ve assumed a man like you in your position ought to watch the news all the time,” I say. His eyes narrow on mine. I want to look away—desperately want to look away. But I hold his stare, refusing to feel the fear gnawing at me.
“What did you do, little Dove?” He smiles back, as if the situation doesn’t bother him at all.
