Page 59 of Spitfire

I stumble forward, my body aching, as a scream dies on my lips. My eyes flutter open, and before me stand the two men I love, with varying degrees of panic and fear on their features. I shake my head, to try to clear the buzzing, and for a moment I'm so disoriented by the silence that it has me panting. I can now feel wetness on my shirt, and the stinging in my neck from where she cut me. My head pounds as if someone were using it as a drum, forcing me to blink repeatedly.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO HER?" Jasper's panicked voice breaks through some of the overwhelming sensations, and I struggle to meet his gaze. My lips open and close, words refusing to be released. My hand and wrist ache, and when I glance down, I realize that I'm still holding the gun, pointed at my men.

"HOLY FUCK! I got you, Garnier!" A large figure storms past Jasper and Xavier, pushing them out of the way, and my mind can't make sense of what I'm seeing. "POLICE, DROP YOUR FUCKING WEAPON, LYSSA, OR I'LL SHOOT!"

"Douglas?" I croak, my hand shaking, and my finger pressing over the trigger. I don't get another word out. Douglas fires his gun at me, and it's as if I'm trapped in slow motion, watching it come right at me and unable to move.

RUN! LITTLE DARLING, RUN!

"NOOOO! SCARLETT!"

A large blur pushes me out of the way, and I release my hold on the gun. It goes skidding away from me, as I slide across the slippery floor and fall backward, my shoulders and head smacking viciously into the wall behind me with a crack. "Ah… fuck," I cry.

"Jasper! Oh my fucking God, what have you done?" Xavier rages as he rushes forward. I force my head to rise, even though my head spins, and my stomach threatens to purge its contents.

"I… he… I was trying to stop… her. I... fuck!" Douglas' panicked words break through, and I look ahead of me, and what I see has me screaming, but it's not only my anguish, it's Ashmaker's too. The wail is soul-crushing, as if our combined heart is being ripped apart.

Jasper lies awkwardly on the floor ahead of me, his body far too still, his eyes shut, and it causes my heart to try to dart out of my chest. A large pool of blood is forming around him, soaking his clothing, and spreading towards his head. Noooo, this can't be happening. Not him, please, no!

"Jasper! Fuck, Jasper, can you hear me?" Xavier shouts as he tries to stop the bleeding from the gunshot wound to Jasper's chest.

NO! KILL HIM! HE TOOK HIM FROM US!

Douglas stares in horror at Jasper, his face ashen and body shaking as he goes into shock. His legs give out, and he falls to the floor on his ass, dropping his weapon in the process, as his pants soak up Jasper's life fluid. I crawl forward on autopilot, Ashmaker's rage and devastation matching mine. I can't think; everything is one painful twister inside of me, threatening to wreck me for good. I reach for Jasper's discarded gun and point it at Douglas.

He took him away from us! He murdered him. He can't live! Don't let him live, Scarlett. Jasper requires justice.

He killed Jasper, my Jasper. The one who loves me, and I didn't get a chance to tell him I love him back. For once, she and I are in complete agreement. He took from us, and for that his life is forfeit.

"Scarlett! Fuck! Don't!" Xavier shouts, but it's too late. My finger presses on the trigger over and over, the bangs loud and jarring, echoing off the walls, until I can't hear a thing besides my blood rushing in my ears. My body trembles so much that my teeth chatter and clash together, and I taste copper inside my mouth. I feel my fingers releasing Jasper's gun, and it disappears from my grasp.

How will we survive without him?

It's over now, little darling. It will all be well now.

EPILOGUE SCARLETT

Six months later.

"What are you doing, Spitfire?" I pause, caught red-handed with Xavier's skull mask over the lower half of my face. I inhale deeply, loving the scent of him lingering on the fabric. I turn completely around, arching my back, and allowing my dark hair to flow down my back, as I give him a perfect view of my naked body. His hoarse groan has my core clenching, and a shiver racing down my spine. "I see you're in the mood to play tonight, pretty girl."

I stay silent, watching as he moves closer, and trails one long, pale finger down the middle of my breasts before pinching my nipple, and making me gasp as my head tilts back in pleasure. My skin erupts in goosebumps, and I try to fight my whimper as he twists my tender flesh. "What's brought this on, not that I'm complaining in any way." He leans down and swipes his tongue over my other hard peak, as he continues to mercilessly play with me.

"We've been working so hard, so I thought we needed to let off some steam, and maybe a distraction wouldn't be so bad." He pulls back and cradles my jaw gently, an expression of tenderness filling his blue-gray eyes that I've come to adore.

"She's still not speaking to you?" A sharp pang of pain hits my chest at his question as I shake my head. Ashmaker hasn't said one word to me since that night Douglas shot Jasper, and I killed him in a blind rage. At first I was relieved by the silence, needing time to process what had happened, and that I had killed an innocent man. No, not just a man, a fellow cop who was only doing what was right, and thought he was defending another agent from two killers.

Then the silence turned from days to weeks, as the investigation went on into Douglas' death. Still she wouldn't speak to me, but I felt her emotions, and the despair she had fallen into at us killing him, a man who never harmed anyone, and had always tried to help victims. Regret is a powerful thing, and while I was dealing with the devastation, and realization of what I had done, and trying to stay out of jail, she hid deep down inside of us, burrowing until she became almost immeasurable.

Xavier has a theory that once the bloodlust had passed, she couldn't handle the repercussions of our actions, and how adverse they were to everything she fervently believed in. She'd only ever hurt the monsters, and poor Douglas was just a confused, eager young man, trying to do his best, and advance his career within the bureau. The silence I once thought might be a blessing is now a constant, painful wound that seems incapable of healing. The truth is I miss her, even her madness and rage. It's as if I'm hollowed out and discombobulated.

"Give it time, she'll come around, Scarlett. She can't stay silent forever, plus we're safe now, and once she realizes that, things will change." He runs his nose up the middle of my chest, until he reaches that spot that makes me melt, where my neck and collarbone meet, and uses his teeth. I don't argue with him, but I'm not so sure that he's correct. She can, in fact, stay silent forever. She was with me for most of my life, and I didn't even know she was there. That's what scares me the most: that our actions have broken what was left of her.

As for being safe, yes, for now I guess we are, or as safe as two serial killers can be, who've gotten away with multiple murders. We managed to spin everything that happened against the yet unknown Ashmaker. Xavier and I lied that we'd followed a tip that Ashmaker was hunting Jacques St. Clair, to seek justice on behalf of the women he'd killed.

When we arrived at the scene, he had already dismembered and tortured Jacques, and took us hostage at gunpoint, with the threat against Molly Huntington, the poor woman Jacques had drugged and kidnapped. She ended up corroborating our story, about being taken and tied up while everything was happening. Jasper and Douglas arrived as backup, like two white knights, and in the ensuing gunfire, that's how they both were shot, and of course Ashmaker managed to get away.

Thank fuck Xavier was able to remotely delete any of our digital footprints, including everything Jasper had on his phone and laptop. That's how Douglas found us in the first place. Jasper left his laptop unprotected, and Douglas snooped through his shit, quickly realizing I was the killer, and tracked Jasper's phone, using the bureau's location app. You could say he used Jasper's methods against him. It would be a hilarious circumstance if it wasn't so fucking sad and tragic.