I turn away.
I can’t watch.
But suddenly my body is flying. I’m not thinking straight. I’m not thinking at all. I run as fast as I can, knowing that I’m fast enough. There is nothing that could ever stop me from getting to Zeke, from stopping him from hurting Liesel.
“Get the fuck off me. She deserves to die,” Zeke yells, a man who hasn’t yet accepted what has happened to the love of his life.
“Put the damn gun down, Zeke,” I say as I point my gun at him.
I won’t let him hurt Liesel, my huntress. He can’t hurt her. He can’t kill her.
“No—no more games. She dies today, not however many months you want to wait to get answers. She’ll never give them to you. She dies today.”
Liesel is ignoring our fight. She doesn’t give a damn if she dies or not. She’s drowning in her own tears. She would probably prefer us to kill her and make the pain stop.
“Liesel isn’t dying today,” I say, still holding onto Zeke’s back. Zeke is twice the size of me. Physically, he’s stronger. The only way to beat him is to outsmart him, which in his grief just might be possible. But he’s not the only one grieving. My brain isn’t functioning at the moment.
Boom.
The gun goes off.
No.
No, no, no…
I look over at Liesel. She’s still alive. I don’t see any blood. I follow her gaze to my leg, and that’s when I see my own blood spilling out.
I exhale, thankful the bullet hit me. No one else I love will die.
I can’t feel the physical pain. All I can feel is the heartbreak.
Zeke sees the blood, and finally, I’m able to wrestle the gun from him.
“Why did you stop me?” Zeke whispers.
My heart clenches. Because I care about Liesel more than I will ever admit out loud. More than I care about Siren. More than one can care about another person. And yet, I still want to kill her for what she’s done.
My plan failed, in so many fucking ways. I need to rethink everything when it comes to Liese
l. There are so many pieces that I’m missing. At least now I have some of the truth. I need to lay it all out like an unsolved crime to figure out the rest of her lies.
“Go to Siren. She needs you right now,” I tell Zeke before he tries to grab the gun from me again.
Zeke slinks on the ground to where Siren lies. I think he was too afraid to go to her. Too afraid that he might find her dead.
I watch as he lifts her bloodied head into his large lap with his rough hands. He strokes her face and whispers something into her ear.
Her chest is still rising and falling.
Siren is still alive.
She has to be my first priority. I have to make sure she’s alive. That’s all that matters right now. I need to keep my family intact and alive. The rest I’ll figure out later.
I look to Maxwell, who isn’t much of a bodyguard unarmed.
I hold up one of the guns I now possess and aim it at him. He doesn’t even flinch. He’s prepared to die.
Interesting.