The same way she trusted Zach to still be alive, fighting, coming for her.
Marcus noticed her movement. His eyes tracked to her pocket, and something flickered across his face. Recognition? Amusement? He wagged the gun back and forth, like a teacher correcting a student, the muzzle tracing a lazy arc in the air.
“No, no, I don’t think so. Take your hands out of your pockets, young lady. No weapons for you. This is my crescendo.”
“No weapon. It’s just a pretty stone I picked up.” Emma drew her hands out, fingers wrapped around the Windstone, hiding what it was. Marcus would only see the edges.
“A stone. How quaint. I’m not sure what you think it’s going to do for you up here.”
Thunder cracked overhead, so loud it reverberated through her chest.
Zach appeared.
He stumbled out of the tree line like a ghost, barely upright. His left arm hung limp at his side. Blood soaked through his shirt in dark patches that the rain couldn’t wash away fast enough. Each step cost him something vital, some piece of strength he didn’t have to spare.
But he was standing. Still fighting. Stillhere.
Relief and horror flooded through Emma in equal measure. He followed her. Of course he had. Poisoned and bleeding—dying—he followed her into the teeth of the storm.
You beautiful, stubborn, impossible man.
A faint smile touched Marcus’s lips, the kind that belonged in an art gallery, not on a cliff edge in the middle of a hurricane.
“Still standing,” he said, sounding impressed. “I’ll admit that’s remarkable. Most men would be unconscious by now. Or dead.”
Zach’s gray-blue eyes locked onto Emma first, scanning her for injuries with the intensity of a tactical assessment. They shifted to Marcus, and everything about him sharpened despite the visible tremor in his limbs.
“Emma.” His voice came out hoarse, barely audible over the storm. “Get behind me.”
She didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her feet had grown roots into the stone.
He waggled the gun again. “No, I don’t think so. She’ll remain where she is.” Marcus’s smile widened. “You killed him, I assume.” He shifted to face Zach directly. “My asset from the beach. Since you’re here, and he’s not.”
He examined his gun with casual interest. “It appears you saved me the trouble of disposing of him.”
“The man at the resort,” Zach's words came slower, slurred around the edges. “The blades.”
“Coated. Yes.” Marcus spoke with the patience of a teacher explaining a simple concept to a recalcitrant student. “You felt it, didn't you? Coordination slipping. Limbs not responding properly. Eventually, paralysis.” He tilted his head, studying Zach like an intriguing specimen. “Yet, he still did not defeat you. Fascinating.”
He shrugged, shifting his weight, and lifted the gun. Still not aimed, but ready. “You're still trying to fight it. That's almost admirable. Well, no matter. Within minutes, the resort will be gone?—”
Marcus raised the gun. This time, there was no casualness to the gesture. The barrel came up in a smooth and deliberate motion, aimed at Zach.
“—along with both of you.”
Zach tried to move—toward Marcus, toward Emma, she couldn’t tell—but his legs betrayed him. He caught himself ona tree, bark crumbling under his grip. Too slow. Too unsteady. Emma’s heart cracked watching him fight his own body.
“You were never meant to get this far.”
Time crystallized.
Emma saw it all with perfect clarity: the gun leveled at Zach's chest, the distance, Zach trying to push upright with strength he didn’t currently possess. His hand reached for a knife that would never clear the sheath before Marcus pulled the trigger.
He couldn’t save himself.
Not this time.
The realization hit her like lightning—bright and searing, andabsolute. Zach couldn't win.
