Crack.
“Holy shit,” I half squeal, half shriek as the guy jerks like he was zapped with a live wire, then stops moving as a pool of blood gathers on the ground around his head.
My mind is still reeling as my stomach roils, and I hastily look away from the bodies of our captors and glance at Xave.
In an instant, the cold and almost robotic man who executed three people like it’s something he’s done a dozen times melts away, and the life comes back to his eyes as his demeanor shifts from predator who doesn’t play to a normal person who did what he had to do.
I blink at him like a moron as he crosses the distance between us in three long strides and kneels in front of me, the gun at his side and pointed at the ground.
“You’re okay,” he says in a soothing tone. “Pull in a deep breath for me.”
I immediately suck in a breath, but it’s like I forget what to do next and just hold it with my chest and cheeks puffed out.
A part of me knows I should be terrified of Xave, considering what I just saw him do and how easily he did it, but I’m not. He did what I couldn’t, and for some crazy reason, that actually helps calm some of my rising panic.
“Now let it out,” he says softly when I continue to hold my breath and stare at him like a puffer fish.
I do as he says, and more of my faculties come back as the worst of the shock melts away with my exhale.
“We need to get out of the open,” he explains as he slides his arm around my back and helps me to my feet.
Still clutching the laptop like it’s a shield, I let Xave drag me over to the side of the cabin and deposit me against the wall next to the still-open cellar door.
“Stay here,” he says when I’m stable enough to stand on my own. “I’m going to clear the house and do a quick perimeter check. Get behind the door and hide if you see anyone who isn’t me. Got it?”
I nod, and a second later, Xave disappears around the side of the house.
Pressing my back against the rough wood of the cabin wall, I try to slow my breathing so I don’t hyperventilate and keep my eyes on the ground in front of me as my brain spins and stalls.
What the actual fuck just happened? How the hell did Xave know how to disarm that guy like that? And how could he just shoot all three of them without flinching? Has he killed people before? Is that why he’s so unbothered after dropping three guys while I barely held onto my sanity and was about to lose my ever-loving mind just from watching him do it?
Are the rumors about him and his cousins true? I’ve heard a lot of stories over the years about how the Hawthorne cousins always seem to find themselves in the center of trouble, and that all four of them have a body count that has nothing to do with how many people they’ve slept with.
I’ve always assumed the stories were either lies or massive exaggerations of shit that actually went down to make them seem more badass and to deter people from fucking with them. Is it possible they’re true?
One of the things about our school that’s out of the norm is that there’s an unnaturally high crime rate among the studentbody. Theft, extortion, blackmail, attempted murder, even actual murder, aren’t rare events, and it’s one of those things that everyone knows but no one talks about.
The other unique thing about our school is that there’s not a lot of punishment for said crimes, and for the most part, the school is perfectly happy to let the frats and the families of the students involved handle things however they see fit.
Now that I’ve seen what Xave is capable of, I don’t doubt that every rumor I’ve heard about him is true.
Still holding the damn laptop against my chest like it’s my security blanket, I sink down the wall and sit on the dirty ground as the world around me spins and the edges of my vision shimmer with static as all the adrenaline from getting hauled out of the cellar at gunpoint melts out of me in an instant.
I have no idea how long I stay like that with my head down and trying to get my body and brain to stop glitching out, but the sound of footsteps drags me out of my daze, and I look up just as Xave comes around the corner, the gun at his side and his pace unhurried.
“It’s clear,” he tells me.
I blink at him a few times, then give him a slow nod as I try to get my brain to start working again.
He must see how out of it I am because he tucks the gun into the back of his pants and kneels in front of me.
“Are you okay?” he asks gently.
“I have no idea,” I tell him truthfully. “I think so?” I chew on my lip for a few beats. “Are they dead?”
He nods. “It’s over. There’s no one else here.”
“Okay,” I say stupidly, still staring at him like I’m not sure if he’s real or some sort of hallucination.
