“Get him in the fucking barn!” Lex orders, rushing towards me to check me over. A few scrapes and bruises but I’ll live. Isobel limps towards us, not because she’s injured but because she appears to be missing a shoe but other than that she doesn’t have a single hair out of place.
What the actual fuck!?
With all the chaos now over, the screaming from upstairs travels through the halls, reminding me that I needed to get to Rory.
I rush to the stairs but two arms band around my waist, hauling me back. Lex’s breathing is heavy and hard in my ear, fanning my hair until it tickles against my skin and then Ryker pushes past, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Let him deal with this!” Lex growls.
“Get the fuck off me Lex.” I snap. “Stop fucking telling me what to do!”
His hand comes around my throat, holding me further back on him, his fingers squeezing my windpipe, “Little bird,” he rasps, “Let’s not play fucking games.”
“I’m not fucking playing,” its hard to speak with his hand on my throat and even despite the current situation, being in this position with him, his dominance and need to control leaves a heat in its wake, one that reminds me every fucking day how fucked I am for this man.
But Rory needs me, and I can revisit this shit later.
I slam an elbow back into his stomach, shocking him enough for him to let me go and before he can grab me again, I dart to the stairs, too quick for him to catch me. I climb the stairs to his curses, joined by a chorus of laughter from Kingston and his sister.
“Shit, Silver, you got yourself a wild one,” Kingston’s voice becomes distant the higher in the house I get.
“No! I can’t go back!” I hear as I round the corner on the hall, my feet slipping on the hardwood. “I can’t go back.”
“Put the gun down, Rory, you’re not going back.”
My heart sinks.
On shaky legs I make it to the door and tug at the handle, pulling and pulling but the thing doesn’t fucking open.
“Open the door!” I scream.
Lex is at the end of the hall, storming towards me, his face a mask of pure rage but I don’t give a fuck about that, he can be angry later.
“I can’t,” she sobs. “I can’t go back, you don’t understand.”
“Will you shoot me?” Ryker asks.
My heart sinks further.
“Put the gun down.”
“You’re going to send me back.”
“Rory!” Ryker shouts.
“I’m not going back!”
“No!” Ryker booms.
Rory’s scream is followed by a gun shot.
Both Lex and I freeze, the air being sucked from my lungs.
The thud of a body hitting the floor makes me jump.
She shot him.
She shot Ryker.