And please, make it quick. I don't want to suffer.
Victor started to bring his wrath down on me and I grimaced, waiting for that one last ounce of pain before the sweet release of death.
It never came.
There was a bang and as I opened my eyes wide to try and figure out why, Victor's head split open, blood spattering to the side before he followed its trajectory and collapsed like a heap of bones beside me.
I stared at him, at his big brown eyes that had life in them only moments ago but now were cold, dead in a matter of seconds, and I froze. I froze for what seemed like hours.
The blood mixed in with the brown mud and as I turned up to look at the sky, the rain stopped as if someone had turned a switch. The gray clouds parted and a weak sunlight bathed us in warmth.
"Are you okay?" Zach’s voice was a melody to my ears, and I blinked back to reality.
Zach knelt down beside me, dropped the gun he'd been holding and put his hands on my face.
"Dare, can you hear me? Did he hurt you? Are you okay?" he shouted, pushing my eyelids open with his thumbs.
"I am now," I croaked and he let out a big breath.
"Oh God, Dare. You big, silly man. Are you okay?"
I nodded, but that seemed to kickstart the pain all over my body and I groaned.
"What? What is it?" he asked, patting my body.
He stopped after a few seconds and stared at me.
"I love you," I told him.
"What?" he asked.
I opened my mouth but only a cough came out.
"Are you okay?" He towered over me and searched my eyes for answers when I didn't really have any.
"I am and I love you. I wanted...I wanted to say it before it was too late." I raised my hand and cupped his face, caressed his skin.
"Too late? Why is it too late?" he cried.
Instead of answering him, I pulled him down to me, down to my lips.
It was good to hold him again. To be in his orbit once more. To know he'd be okay. We both would be. Because Victor was dead. There may still be evil out there, but the world had one less monster in it.
And Zach was safe. He had survived. He could live without fear. He could be anything he wanted to be.
Hopefully he wanted to be mine, among other things.
THIRTY-FOUR
ZACH
Ifelt his arms around me, and it was only within the safety of his embrace that the last seconds caught up with me. The gravity of what I'd done hit me like a ton of bricks.
My hands trembled and I flinched, turning to look at the gun on the ground as if it was about to explode.
"Zach, baby, are you okay?" Dare pushed me off him gently and tried to catch my gaze, but my eyes were too busy staring at the gun and the dead man behind it. The man who was glaring back at me with vacant eyes. It chilled my spine.
Dare rubbed my cheekbone with his thumb and pulled the side of my face toward him gently until I was looking at him and not at Victor’s body.
