Thorin doesn’t so much as twitch as he lies face down in the dirt.
“I said stop!” I don’t remember pulling the gun hidden in my waistband or shooting one of them in the head. There are still too many, but I can’t give a shit anymore. It’s Thorin. The disciple drops, and the rest of them quickly move away from Thor with wary eyes trained on me.
“You didn’t search him?” Isaac shouts.
I don’t see who he directs his ire at because my gaze is pinned on Thorin, waiting for him to get back up.
He doesn’t.
I don’t even think he’s breathing.
His face is mangled and blood coats his hair, and I’m pretty sure one of his arms looks broken.
Rage that tastes like ash and blood in the back of my throat rises up and I re-aim the gun. Something akin to fear flickers in Isaac’s eyes once I have him staring down the barrel. It’s gone in a flash when he remembers he’s not supposed to fear death, and his calm mask of control slips back into place.
“I can see that you won’t be moved so easily, Seth. That’s unfortunate.”
The masked disciple who captured us suddenly reaches for his mask and removes it. When his face and salt-and-pepper goatee come into view, I feel the edges of my vision turn black.
Not now, not now…
“Come with us,” William Brantford urges. “Come with us and you can be with Tatum again. You can be with my daughter like you’ve always wanted.”
My lip curls, and even though I’m not Zeke and never fell for the bitch, I feel his burning hatred for the girl who betrayed him curling in my gut like a disease. Need to cut it out. Once and for all. I’m going to kill this fucker. “Fuck Tatum,” I spit out in her father’s face.
He startles like he’s shocked, and his weathered face turns red at the disrespect to his dead daughter’s memory. If Brantford’s one of the masked ones, then it means he’s completed his sacrifice. Isaac would certainly want to separate the true believers from the sheep as another exercise of mental manipulation.
But who did Brantford sacrifice? His youngest daughter? His wife? Someone distantly related who he pretended to give a shit about long enough to use them like Isaac did me?
“Fuck,” I grumble, knowing my mind’s made up and there’s no turning back now. I re-aim the gun and shoot Brantford between the eyes. His blood splatters Isaac’s face, and a few of the disciples cry out in horror as the man’s lifeless body falls to the ground.
“That,” Isaac snarls as he removes a handkerchief from his robes and wipes his face, “was a mistake.”
“Why? According to you, he can’t die, right?”
Isaac doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he points a finger toward Khalil and coldly orders, “Kill him too.”
Too?
No…
My heart sinks as my gaze moves to Thorin lying lifeless on the ground.
One of the disciples presses a gun to the side of Khalil’s head and time slows as his finger curls around the trigger.
No.…no, no, no.I can’t. Not again. I won’t.
With tears running down my face, this time I press the gun underneath my chin. Isaac’s eyes light up as he steps forward.“Yes, Seth. That’s it. Do it. Your friend is dead. You can join him. Pull the trigger. Pull it and let Thanatos ferry you to the other side.”
If I do, Khalil will live. Sunshine will live. I can make it all better if I go. It used to be Zeke. Now I’m the one who wants to die.
“SEEEEETH!” I stop breathing when I hear her furious roar rise above the trees and the flames claiming them. “DON’T YOUFUCKINGDARE!”
Sunshine?
Something flies by my ear, and a strand of my hair rises from the wind it creates and then falls back in place at the same time I hear thethunkof a familiar yellow arrow finding its target. The throat of the disciple aiming a gun at Khalil. The other two holding him down quickly fall to more of the arrows, and then Khalil is free and bounding to his feet. I see him swipe a gun from the dead disciple, and then he’s aiming, but he doesn’t shoot.
We’re still woefully outnumbered.
