That does it.
Before Jack finishes the sentence, Mason detonates.
“The fuck you are,” he thunders and leaps for Jack, but Dan beats him to it, the gun still aimed at my brother’s chest.
“No!” I fight Jack’s arm, but recoil when I feel the kickback.
My heart stops at the sound of the shot. Dan’s shoulder jolts, crimson spreading on blue.
Then—Crack!
I am wrenched out of Jack’s grip as Mason tears Jack’s arm off me, dislocating his shoulder.
The room blurs when Mason whirls me away. “I’ve got you, little dove,” Mason whispers in my hair, shielding me from behind.
When I look back, Jack’s on the floor with one limp arm, Dan towering over him, holding Mason’s bat; Kane braced with another gun that I assume is his; and Caden standing by the wall, holding Jack’s weapon like a dead rat dangling from his fingers.
“Grant,” Dan hisses, without taking his eyes off Jack.
Mason digs the keys from his pocket and throws them at Caden. “Powell, help Barbie get her father in the car.”
Caden drops the gun and catches the keys. Then the ground vanishes beneath my feet as Mason lifts me. My eyeslock on the bat in Dan’s hand that’s still dripping red, braced for the next victim.
“No. Dan, No!” I reach toward Dan, but Mason tightens his hold on my waist, lifting me higher, while I fight against him. “Dan, don’t. Dad wouldn’t want you to. Please!”
Dan doesn’t turn. Mason doesn’t budge.
“Grace!” I ask for her help, but she’s staring at Jack, white as a sheet.
“Let’s go, Eva,” she says without emotion. Caden and she lift Jonathan with one arm and carry him out, braced on each of their shoulders.
“Mason. Now,” Dan barks.
“No!” I shove at Mason as he takes me away. “Stop him. Call the police. Please, Dan can’t do this.”
“I’m sorry, princess. I gave him my word,” he whispers.
Fuck his word.I claw at him with both hands, striking wherever I can as he drags me outside, where two more bodies are sprawled on the red-brick driveway. Grace and Caden get into a car and drive off, while Mason takes me to the third. Not listening. Not letting me down.
“I have to stop him, Mase.” I block the way with my arm when he reaches for the door.
“You can’t stop him. We tried.”
“Let me try,” I plead. “Dan’s hurt. He needs to go to A&E."
“Kane will take care of that.”
“Dan isn’t built for this, Mason. It’s going to break him. I’m going to lose what’s left of my brother. Take me back, please.”
“You’re not going back there,” he roars. “You’re never going anywhere.”
“If you take me away now, you’ll lose me forever.” My voice cracks on the last word. “I mean it.”
Mason’s stare bleeds into me, and I know I’ve lost before he opens the car door.
“I hate you!” I cry as he puts a hand on my head and shoves me in.
We blast down the south coast as a series of sirens blare in the opposite direction. Every ache in my body withers into a cold, hollow sting, as if the warmth has been dragged out of me. The loss, the pain, it's toounbearable.
