Page 109 of Saving Wyatt

He laughed. “Did you think you were going to get rid of me that easily? Did you think I could be kept behind bars? You’re a stupid, stupid man. Though I can’t lie. It was a pretty smart plan of yours. Where did you hide that camera? Nevertheless, it will take much more than a little footage to stop me. Did you really think that was the end? Did you think I wouldn’t come back?”

He glanced at Ari, and I looked at him from the corner of my eyes. He was staring at me over Wilson. It was killing me that I couldn’t stare back, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the target right now. I couldn’t let him put an end to the love of my life now that I’d found it.

“Whatever you think you need to do to punish me, you don’t. Take me, not him. Please.”

I didn’t know if begging would work, but I had to try. I had to fucking try something.

I shouldn’t have let my guard down. I should have known this wouldn’t be the end. I was better than that. We all were. Obviously he was going to escape. There was only one way to stop this man and that was to put him six feet under.

“Oh, your time will come. Don’t worry. But I want to see you suffer first. Clearly I didn’t take enough from you to break your spirit. But I think it,” he said, looking to the side at Ari, “will do.”

Bile filled my mouth. My chest filled with air and my gut twisted. I was losing my patience, but I couldn’t. Not if it meant Ari’s demise.

“You think that would stop me? If anything, I’d go after you harder. I’d kill you with my bare hands. I will kill you if you hurt him. You’ve taken enough from me, and I stood back and dealt with the pain, but this? This, killing him, would be your end. And that’s a promise.”

Wilson dropped his arm for a moment as he laughed, though I couldn’t see the humor in my statement.

He was maniacal. Spittle flew from his mouth as he laughed and laughed and laughed. I tried to get to my feet, but as soon as I moved an inch, he returned the gun to Ari’s head, grinning from ear to ear.

He had clearly lost it. It had been pretty obvious before, but now it was undeniable.

I had to think of something—anything—to distract him long enough and take him out before he put a bullet through…

I couldn’t even begin to contemplate that happening. I wasn’t going to let it happen. I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to fucking lose him. He wasn’t going to die because he’d chosen to be with me.

“Maybe we can come to an agreement,” I said, my mind going a hundred miles an hour.

He scoffed. “An agreement? We both know how well you keep those.”

“This is different,” I said and put my hands in the air. “This is important. He is important to me, and to this world, and I will do anything to make you not hurt him. So what is it? Name your price.”

Wilson laughed again and took a step closer to me and a step away from Ari.

“You think you can buy my mercy? You took everything from me. Everything. There’s nothing you can give me to make up for it. So, I’ll do my fucking best to make sure you get to live to see what it means to lose everything too.”

Before I could respond, before I could try to reason with him or to throw myself at him, Ari brought his hands to his front and launched himself at Wilson’s side.

Bang!

The gun went off as Wilson fell to the side and Ari in front of the bed. I pushed myself off and jumped over him and onto Wilson, crashing my body onto his.

We were inches away from each other and I could look into those big, evil, brown eyes of his and see my own reflection in them. See the light that kept him going even at his lowest.

I growled and headbutted him. My hands searched for his, but before I could pin them to the ground, he landed a punch at my throat. The oxygen left my body and I fell to the side.

I grabbed my neck and tried to breathe, but it was hard. Lying on my back like that I could see Ari. He’d crawled to the bedside table in a matter of seconds and his phone was in his hand.

“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” said a muffled voice on the other end.

“Game over, bitch,” Ari told Wilson, staring him dead in the eyes, and I noticed at the last second Wilson’s hand rising in front of him with the gun still in his hand.

Breathing or not, I threw myself onto Wilson.

Bang!

This time the shot deafened me momentarily, and I flinched back to the past, to missions in the desert, to the deadly silence of the night, to the fire raining all around us. To teammates falling to the ground, bullets through their heads.

My temples throbbed. My body ached. But I couldn’t give up. Not now. Not yet.