Sam fingers the pen loose, small and heavy in his palm. Then grips it tightly.
The stab is quick — animal — a spike of pain put into Tom’s leg through denim, right where the femoral nerve blooms and convulses. Tom jerks. The hand at Sam’s throat loosens by the fraction Sam needs.
Tom reacts too fast, with that awful, clean panic that has no room for nuance. The blade comes away from Sam’s throat, but in the panic to pull away, the knife comes down and finds flesh.
Sam feels it—hot, sharp—somewhere under his ribs, and the world gets a deeper acoustic. Air rushes from him as if the room itself has exhaled, and the blade twists in an angle that does not belong to the choreography Sam expected.
Tom stumbles forward like someone shoved from behind; in his momentum Sam is pushed as well, stumbling hard toward Pete.
Sam sees the look in his eyes. A half-second of panic before instinct takes over. The gun goes off. No warning, no hesitation. Just a crack of sound that feels like the universe slamming a door shut.
The impact isn’t pain at first. It’s force. A punch from the inside, stealing the breath from Sam’s lungs as the bullet rips through him.He staggers, but the world has already started tilting, colours draining, sound thinning to a high, distant ring.
Time becomes unreliable — either a heartbeat or a whole lifetime passes.
Tom is gone — sprinted out of the room, footsteps fading like someone abandoning a burning house. Sam doesn’t chase him. He can’t. His legs are no longer part of the plan.
He looks up at Pete instead.
Pete stands there, gun trembling, eyes wide and wet — regret, fury, calculation — all fighting for space in his expression.
Sam’s body gives up first. His head drops, vision greying at the edges, the world folding gently inward.
And then the light inside him flickers, once… twice… and goes out.
Chapter 65
TOM
I don’t think. I just run.
My legs move before my mind catches up, slipping in blood, skidding across the tiles, lungs full of the metallic stink of gunpowder and death. Sam’s body is still warm on the floor behind me, but I can’t look back — I can’t process any of it — not Emma, not James, not the fact that the house is just a maze of corpses now. I just need to get out.
The back door. The garden. The street. Freedom.
I’m two steps from the kitchen door when the first gunshot cracks behind me—deafening, ripping through the air, splintering the wood frame inches from my hand.
I drop. Pure instinct. The second shot hits the counter I was just beside. Plates explode. Glass rains. Pete’s voice tears through the room:
“You killed him! You killed him!”
He soundsbroken— but the strength in it is terrifying. Rage sharpens him. I can feel it like heat on my back.
I crawl, fingers slipping on the floor, reaching for the handle, pushing the door— but another shot forces me the opposite direction, away from the exit. He’s herding me like prey.
The only path left is the side door—the one that leads to the garage.
I sprint.
Another shot echoes. No time. I slam into the door, burst through, and my feet hit concrete. The smell changes — cold, oil, dust, and—
Daniel.
He’s on the floor, propped against the wall like a puppet with its strings cut. His throat is a gaping red smile, eyes open but unseeing. Horror hits me, but only for a second — I don’t get the luxury of grief anymore. I don’t get to feel anything.
I step over him.
The garage is a shrine to disorder — half storage space, half graveyard of abandoned DIY projects. The only light comes from a single flickering bulb overhead, throwing everything into jerky shadows like the room’s breathing with me.
