Inhale.A soft voice took over the yelling in my head, and suddenly my body felt lighter, less like it was being weighed down, less like I was being strangled and choking.
“Inhale,” Skylar whispered. “You need to breathe. Do it with me.”She was on the back of my bike, whispering in my ear, not telling me it was all in my head, not getting frustrated that I imagined myself unable to breathe, not trying to tell me she was going to help me get better.
Just sitting with me, doing something so simple to help me get through the haze. I could hear her slow intake of air in my head and immediately gasped, my lungs expanding fully at the same time a loud bang filled the air and Abel’s body was thrown against the car with force.
He stumbled backward away from the door, the gun falling from his hand as he failed to catch himself and tumbled against the road. I looked out the window, expecting to see one of my brothers standing there looking smug having saved my life.
It wasn’t one of my brothers, and they didn’t look smug, they look scary as fucking hell. “Holy shit,” I muttered, my fingers fumbling with the damn belt buckle as I struggled to get out of the car. I practically fell out, clutching the driver’s door in my hands to keep me somewhat on my feet. I could feel pain, but at that point, I wasn’t really sure where it was coming from and the adrenaline was managing to hold it at bay.
Skylar, on the other hand, was standing at the curb with Wrench and Optimus behind her, a handgun pointed at her brother as he rolled around on the ground groaning. Her blonde hair was stained with blood, and she had bright red smears down her arms as though someone had tried to finger paint her. She was glaring at Abel with an intensity that would make any grown man or woman second guess approaching her or even moving.
“Baby girl,” I croaked, letting go of the door and hobbling across the road toward them.
Wrench came forward, snatching Abel’s gun off the ground before grabbing my arm and hooking it around his shoulders for support. Obviously, the crash had done something to my leg, making it weak, but I refused to look at it, it could fucking wait. Right now, I needed to get to Sky before she did something she would regret.
The rest of my brothers were making their way out to the street. Leo and Ham dragging a body behind them, the guy cursing and pleading like a baby at the same time, his hands bound with what looked like electrical wiring.
I heard a car door behind me open and looked over my shoulder to see Deacon helping a dazed-looking Skins from the passenger’s seat, Blizzard jogging over to help when he saw Jess struggling to lift Sky’s sister who was still sobbing quietly. That at least gave me some kind of hope. She was still awake, still alert.
“Get them inside,” Optimus ordered as Blizzard took the girl and Jess slumped in relief, one hand over her body, holding the opposite shoulder like she was in pain. Deacon and Blizzard hurried them back toward the clubhouse.
“Sky,” I murmured as I stood beside her, my brother supporting me as I tried to get her attention. “Baby, look at me.”
She didn’t move, her aim was steady, and it was pointed right at her piece of shit brother who just seconds ago was ready to blow my fucking head off. I should just step back and let her do it. Allow her to remove the piece of shit from the world and then move the hell on with our lives.
But I couldn’t. It would haunt her. She might not think it would because she would be technically doing the world a hell of a service, but she was wrong. For most of her life, he was like her jailer, he did her dad’s dirty work, he hurt her.
But I knew she still had those few memories of the times before he changed, times when he stepped in and took her punishment along with his own. Those were the things that would get to her, they would make her wonder whether she should have done something different, whether because he changed once, that maybe there was that boy inside him who still cared about her and perhaps he could be turned back.
“He killed my father. He’s been running the Colony and married Emerald to this man who was going to sell her off! For God’s sake he had Delilah shot, and who knows if she’ll pull through. If I don’t do this, he’ll just go to jail. He could still control the Colony from there.” Her voice was soft but strong. “I won’t let him hurt any more people, he’s a monster.”
Laughter had us all turning, her brother lay on the ground, his hand pressed over the wound in his shoulder, vibrating with laughter.
“This asshole’s gonna die today,” Wrench muttered under his breath. “If she doesn’t do it, I will.”
“It’s hilarious that you people view death as a punishment,” Abel called so that we all could hear. “I will be with my god, I will live in the celestial kingdom with others who have pledged their allegiance like me for the rest of eternity because I did his work. So shoot me, because you have no options left. You either let me live and continue to build the Colony, or kill me and let me ascend into heaven.”
Skylar finally turned her head and looked at me. “I can’t let him continue to torment those people. They don’t know any better. They’ll follow him.”
I raised my hand and placed it over the gun, slowly pushing it down until it was pointed at the ground. “You need to trust me, we aren’t going to let him ruin any more lives. And we sure as hell ain’t going to give him the death that he knows will allow him to escape after every fucking thing he has done.”
I looked over at Leo standing on the other side of the street.
He raised his eyebrow at me, and the corner of his mouth turned up. “This guy thinks he’s gonna get out of here easy,” Leo joked. “You want to tell him the good news or the bad news.”
There was no way in hell, any of these men standing here were going to let Abel get away without feeling some of the pain that he’d inflicted on these people who follow his word. This was going to mean getting a little creative because it was hard to threaten someone with death when they aren’t afraid to die.
“Good news first,” I said, taking the gun from Skylar’s hand and passing it back to Optimus. Her body instantly slumped, and she turned to me, burying her face in my chest and crying softly.
“The good news is, you ain’t gonna die yet!” Leo said far too happily, but within a split second, the humor left his face as he walked with purpose toward Abel who was still grinning despite how he was cringing on the ground in pain. “Bad news is… like we told you before, we believe in an eye for an eye, so get ready to cry kid, because not only are we going to destroy you, I’m going to find a list of every sin humanly possible for you to commit… and then to top it off, I have a friend who would just love to make you his bitch.” Leo tapped him on the cheek, and I saw the color drain from his face.
“You have to call me an ambulance. They’ll arrest me. I’ll plead insanity!”
Leo looked up, his eyes focused on Skylar, asking her silently what she would like to do. If she still wanted him dead, I’d shoot him right fucking now for her. And I damn well know he would not be ascending into heaven.
But sometimes, you just had to play their games, and after all the pain he had caused not only Skylar and Emerald but these people who were meant to look up to his family like they were leaders, he deserved all the pain we could deliver before he escaped this life.
Skylar pushed back her shoulders, stepping away from me for a moment and looked Abel directly in the eye. “I’ll write you that list of sins,” she answered, bringing a huge smile to all my brothers’ faces. “You never know, maybe I’ll see you in hell.”