Click.
The recoil snaps up my arm.
A deafening sound thunders inside the warehouse. The world stills.
Then it happens.
A hole gapes in Victor’s forehead, red and gory. His eyes shutter.
Blood trickles between them a second before he collapses to the floor, a pool of blood gathering on the concrete by his head.
I don’t pity him. Don’t regret what I’ve done.
As the thin plume of smoke curls from the barrel, I feel nothing but an ice-cold sense of righteousness.
Unlike me, Jayden’s grieving his cousin. “Victor!” he screams, his feet moving.
To where? I don’t give a fuck.
The gun obeys me without question when I take him out too.
Barclay whips his head toward his friends, both sprawled on the floor, dead. His mouth gapes.
Thankfully, his fingers loosen around Elowyn’s neck as his mind scrambles to understand how his meticulous plan just imploded.
In the split second his focus isn’t on me, I mouth to Elowyn,Duck.
Elowyn, my clever and beautiful girl, dips her chin as far as it’ll go.
Resolve pours through me like molten iron, honing my vision.
Everything snaps into clarity, even things that aren’t there.
Like the straight line from my arm to Barclay. I see it as if a thread connects us.
That’s it.
I’m going to murder my former best friend.
He’s had his chance to be a better human. Dozens of them. One after another, Barclay blew them all to hell.
The trigger is hot beneath my index finger when I feel pulled to look at Elowyn’s face.
She gazes at me beneath her lashes, her serious gaze saying one thing.
Do it.
That’s all the approval I need to pull the trigger.
Because she doesn’t just have my back. She’s choosing me.
Choosing Varn, Mary, and Herbert.
All of us.
The shot tears through the stale air and lands on its mark. The impact sends Barclay collapsing behind the chair with ascream. He ends up plopping on the floor, right there, next to his friends.
A half-formed curse stumbles out of him, ragged and pointless, and then he’s dead.
