“No!” Ghost roared, leaping around me just as the gun fired.
Ghost’s body jerked, and he dropped like dead weight into the water and glass. He didn’t stay down, though. He scrambled up, grabbing Rett and forcing him beneath him as red soaked his shirt.
“You’re shot!” Rett exclaimed, trying to get free and see his injury. Ghost, outweighing him pinned him down, keeping his body sheltered.
I raised my gun, ready to end this once and for all.
Grimaldi shifted, making Haz his armor even as he brought the gun back to his head.
“You know, you were right,” Grimaldi mused as though my friend bleeding on the floor and my everything in his grasp were the highlight of his day. “There’s no reason to send men to deal with my problems when I can just deal with them myself.”
Hazard shouted and started kicking and punching like a wild animal.
“Haz, no,” I said, trying to find a shot as he struggled. I’d rather shoot myself than accidentally hit him.
Grimaldi noted my hesitation and smiled.
My heart stopped, my roar of denial silenced by the boom when he pulled the trigger.
My vision went black, agony blinding me as an inhuman howl gurgled from the deepest, darkest part of me. Deafened,too, by agony, I didn’t hear the sound, but the way it vibrated the room was undeniable. The shadows I had tangled with all my life swelled, and I let them fuel me as I lunged.
Being blind and deaf was no hindrance with death as my guide, for those senses were weak compared to what I unleashed.
Like a tornado, I ripped through the room, across the water and broken glass, firing off a few shots and then tossing aside the weapon because I wanted to drain any life Grimaldi had left with my bare hands. I didn’t think, bowing to my baser instincts to exact revenge even while knowing there would never be enough.
My vision flickered, a dark veil lifting just enough to see a bloodied Grimaldi under me, eyes bulging as my hand gripped his throat like a vise. The blue tinge to his lips was too colorful. I wanted him colorless. I wanted him obsolete like a black-and-white TV.
His eyes flickered between emptiness and fear. A battle between life and death.
Something slammed into my side, but I shook it off, gouging my fingers into the bullet hole I’d put in Grimaldi before. His mouth gaped in pain, a sudden contrast to the softness suddenly breaking into the wrath consuming me.
A tickle of hair against my beard made me blink, and then Haz’s face filled my vision.
I let go of death and grabbed on to life, filling my hands with it and feeling my chest ache. “Baby,” I rasped. “Oh God.”
“I’m fine, Kieran,” he told me. “I’m fine.”
I couldn’t quite understand, but damn, his face was beautiful. Even with tears staining his cheeks and a rivulet of blood trickling from his ear.
Blood.
My hands gripped his face tighter, my thumb swiping through that bright-red stain.
“I moved. The bullet went by my head,” he explained.
“Blood,” I said, staring at my stained thumb.
“It was loud,” he said. “Think my eardrum burst.”
“Alive,” I stated.
He nodded.
I let out a sob and crushed him to me, death succumbing to life.
Someone wheezed. I looked down, realizing I was still pinning Grimaldi and he was fighting for his life. His face was busted, the blood vessels in his eyes burst, lips swollen, and his throat crushed.
“Death doesn’t give. Death only takes,” I snarled and snapped Grimaldi’s neck.
