Page 225 of Damsel in Disguise

Still, my brothers don’t slow down but fire once, then again, each movement precise and terrifyingly calm.

They reach me through the chaos instead of avoiding it. One of the Dominion soldiers swings his weapon toward Adrian.

The man falls before I even understand that Asher fired first.

Behind them, Keinston men pour through the now-destroyed entrance.

Their eyes are scanning, already moving toward me—the second they see me, they stop for half a heartbeat. Like neither of them expected this.

The world collapses into overlapping truths at once.

Asher sees Alistair.

Adrian sees me.

And I see everything I was never meant to understand all at once.

They knew.

Not everything—but enough. Enough to be here. Enough to move through this nightmare like it was already mapped.

Enough that I was never truly alone in it.

My knees threaten to give out as Alistair steps aside, leaning weakly against a nearby wall. His eyes flick at both Asher and Adrian. The tension immediately wears off him at the sight of them.

I notice there’s fresh blood and dirt on both of their shirt. I try to ask if they’re being injured, but they keep brushing it off.

Meanwhile, the laboratory descends into complete mayhem as bullets ricochet off steel walls and glass equipment explodes around us.

Alistair shifts slightly, shielding me even while bleeding, even while failing in the most catastrophic way I’ve ever seen him fail.

That’s when I notice I’ve never seen Alistair fail at anything. Not until now.

The Crown slowly steps forward, his movement calm and unbothered, even though he just happened to shoot his son.

And here I thought my Dad was a bitch.

“You ruined my best creation,” he accuses me with disappointment dripping off his distorted voice.

I feel something in Alistair’s demeanor shift. He pulls me to him and shields me with his body again. I try to push him off, but in vain.

The Crown exhales through something like frustration. “I refined him,” “while you corrupted him,” a beat. “And now you’ve broken him beyond repair.”

The gun in his hand lifts once more.

Not toward Asher. Not toward Adrian. Toward me. Again.

The Crown still tightens his finger around the trigger.

However, another shot never comes from him.

The gunshot echoes from somewhere behind me instead. It’s Adrian.

The bullet still tears through the Crown’s wrist, even though it sends his handgun spinning across the laboratory floor.

A distorted scream rips from behind the mask, ugly and furious, as blood drips between his fingers.

For the first time since I met him, he looks less like a god and more like a wounded animal.