“Shhh…” His breath ghosted against my temple. “Don’t fight it, baby sister. You’ll only make it worse if you do.”
I wanted to scream, to claw at him, to tear the syringe out, but my body betrayed me. The hemlock slithered through me like wildfire, setting every nerve alight. My vision fractured, reality splitting at the seams. The shadows of the barn peeled into shapes, strange glowing colors bleeding across the beams like stained glass. Everything was too bright, too loud, and slipping out of reach.
My knees buckled, and Alec guided me down as if I were fragile glass, lowering me to the dirt with a care that made me want to vomit. He had done this to me, and yet he was trying to be the caring brother I once knew. The gun slipped from my hand, clattering to the floor. A sudden crack split the air as it discharged on impact, the sound ricocheting off the walls.
Logan’s scream echoed around me. Through the kaleidoscope haze, I saw him flinch, clutching himself as if the sound alone had shot through him. Then he scrambled, wild-eyed and pale, until he found his legs and bolted through the side door of the barn. A fleeting satisfaction curled through me. I’d meant for that gunshot to end Logan’s life, but Kaius would hear it. He’d come just as it had been planned. But even as the thought flickered, another wave of fire rolled through my body,stealing my breath. He’d be too slow this time, and when he arrived, he would be met with a dead girl and a ghost he had thought he had rid himself of standing over her.
Every twitch, every breath, burned. My body felt alive and dead all at once, nerves lit like a thousand watts of Christmas lights wired wrong. A groan broke from me when I tried to move, my head lolling to the side against the dirt.
“You promised me!” Astoria’s voice cracked like glass, frantic, breaking through the buzz in my ears. “You promised, Alec! If I did what you asked, you wouldn’t touch either of them!”
Her words blurred, fading into the swirl of colors, echoing like they were spoken underwater. I couldn’t hold on to them. Couldn’t hold on to anything.
“Oh, don’t worry. We have plans for you, little darling,” Alec taunted her, causing tears to burn hot against my lashes, and through the blur, I forced my gaze up. Alec was still there, looming around me now, completely ignoring Astoria’s hysterics. Those familiar blue eyes emptied out, hollow as stone. My lips trembled as I fought the weight pressing down on me.
“We’ve only got…minutes now,” I whispered, my voice cracked and thin. “Before I’m dead.”
The tears finally spilled, hot against my temples. I dry heaved as my body began to try to eject the poison coursing through it. “So tell me, Alec…why? Why are you so willing to kill me, your own sister, now, when you could have avoided this all that night and ended it then?”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
kaius
The desert was quiet tonight.Only the low rumble of thunder echoing off the canyon walls broke the silence, each crack rumbling like a warning. Vince, Nolan, and I crouched in the shadows a few yards from the red barn Acelynn had walked into ten minutes ago. But it felt like she had been in there for hours. We were waiting for two gunshots, the signal that Logan was dead, and my sister could be pulled out of whatever hell he had put her through. Nolan hadn’t stopped pacing, the sand crunching under his boots every time he turned back.
My gaze snapped off him at the sound of the first gunshot. Silence followed, heavier than the storm pressing down on us. My pulse thundered harder as the seconds ticked by. There was always the chance the sound meant everything had gone wrong, that when I stepped inside, I’d be walking straight into my worst nightmare. But this had been Acelynn’s plan. Reckless. Insane.But I had let her run with it. The seconds dragged, and even Vince, who was always steady as a rock, shifted uneasily. I closed my eyes, breathing in a lungful of dry, storm-tainted air. Come on, kitten. One more shot.
The second crack split the night. My eyes opened. Nolan flashed me a grim smile. “It’s showtime, boys.”
We stalked forward, moving quietly downhill, shadows gliding through sand and brush until the barn loomed before us. Nolan vanished around the left side of the building while Vince took the right. They would take care of Astoria while I dealt with whatever cleanup Acelynn needed handled.
Two voices drifted out of the half-open door, pulling me in. I edged close, fingers brushing the grip of my gun, listening.
Acelynn’s voice was off. There was a slight slur to her words. “Start talking.”
Then a ghost from our past answered. “You were never going to live a normal life, Emersyn.”
Ice slid down my spine. Alec Spade. The son of a bitch I had buried in fire and ash. I edged inside, eyes locking on the sight before me. Acelynn was laid out on the ground. She was as white as a ghost, causing the blue in her veins to stand out. There was a glazed overlook in her eyes that I only saw when Vince dosed a person with hemlock. The thought had my stomach dropping. If she had hemlock in her system, there was no telling how long she had left.
“We gave you the illusion of a safety net when we shipped you off to those fancy schools, but you were always going to be a bargaining chip, whether it was with the Knights or another power move our father wanted. It’s the exact reason you were born.” Alec loomed over her, taking slow steps toward her, calm, predatory, his voice soaked with venom.
“I don’t believe you didn’t try to protect me,” she whispered, shoulders slumping slightly at his words. “You, out of everyone,were the biggest advocate for me getting away from the club. What changed?”
“I tasted power, little Spade.” Alec raised his hands up in anoh wellmotion.
Acelynn’s gun lay to her left, just far enough that she wouldn’t be able to reach for it without him noticing. Bruises bloomed across her face, stark in the moonlight. My jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth. The shattering of glass in a back room had Alec moving in a blur toward her, his arm clamped around her throat, twisting her against him. Acelynn’s body was limp in his hold, dangling awkwardly off the ground as he forced a gun beneath her chin like a grotesque puppet show.
I stepped from the shadows, weapon raised and sighted square at his head. Acelynn bucked against him, throwing her head forward into his nose. He laughed, red teeth gleaming, his grip iron. The hit hadn’t had enough strength in it to do any real damage.
“Look at that, sister,” Alec sneered. “Your knight in shining armor, here to save the princess.”
Her cry cut through me as he jammed the gun harder into her jaw. My aim wavered on her instead of him as he lifted her up and against his chest, using her as a human shield against me. Rage burned hotter than the storm overhead. There was no way I had a clean shot with her like that.
“Let her go,” I demanded. My voice was steady, even if my hands weren’t. My gaze never left Acelynn. She was shaking, dirt and blood streaked across her skin, nails clawing at his arm. I wanted to promise she’d be okay, but I couldn’t lie to her. Not here. “Once you let her go, we can do all the talking in the world.”
Alec only smirked. “I rather like the current position we have.”
I tighten the hold on my gun. “Who did I kill that night if it wasn’t you?”
