Paige stood over him, then, the weapon pointed down at his skull. She hated him in that moment, hated him for everything he’d done, and for the ways in which he’d manipulated her. She hated this man who had killed so many people, and who had tried to kill her mother.
Even now, Adam looked up at her with something approaching triumph.
“Do it,” he breathed. “Do it, Paige.”
Paige could feel her finger tightening on the trigger again. She wanted to do this. She wanted to rid the world of an evil man. She wanted to stop Adam, once and for all.
The only thing that stopped her was the thought that he wanted it, too.
He was looking up at her like he was proud of her. Like he still thought that there was some kind of special connection between them. Paige understood then that it didn’t matter to Adam whether she killed him. It might even have been a part of what he’d been hoping would happen here today.
Some part of him must have known that the odds of getting away for long were poor. That with the full might of the FBI hunting him and his picture on every news channel, he would be spotted sooner or later.
“You want this, don’t you?” Paige said. “You’re trying to turn me into someone like you.”
“You are someone like me, Paige,” he said. “You just haven’t seen it yet. I thought that I could show you, and we’d be together. Now, I know that you’ll be my legacy to the world.”
“You’re manipulating me, even now,” Paige said. She pressed the barrel of the gun to his forehead. That fact made her hate him all the more.
But it also made her want to beat him, not just kill him. If she shot Adam now, he’d won. He’d succeeded in turning her into a cold-blooded killer. Paige couldn’t let him do that.
So she stepped back and lowered the gun.
Adam snarled at her like an animal, surging up to his feet as if he might attack her even then, obviously trying to force her to end it.
Christopher was there then, though, sprinting into the clearing as if he’d run all the way in the seconds since the sound of the gunshot, slamming into Adam with his full weight. The two of them went down to the ground in a heap, Christopher landing on top.
Adam struck back at him, lashing out with the knife he had grabbed. If there hadn’t been the weapon, then he would have had no chance, wounded as he was, but its presence meant that Christopher had to grab for it with both hands, locking onto it to stop himself from being stabbed, while Adam struck out at him with head, knees, and even teeth.
Paige saw Christopher strike back, the two of them rolling over in the dirt of the forest floor. Paige still had the gun, but there was no way that she could risk a shot with the two of them tangled so close.
She could, however, step in and reach for Adam. She grabbed him, closing her grip on his wounded shoulder, and he screamed with it. The knife fell from his grasp, and Paige kicked it away.
Christopher was on top of Adam then, rising up and punching him once, twice, a third time. It wasn’t a fair fight anymore. It wasn’t even close. Wounded as he was, Adam had no chance to out-fight the FBI agent.
Christopher wrenched him over onto his stomach, not showing any sign of caring as Adam howled in pain. He took out a set of handcuffs, slapping them on Adam’s wrists.
It was finally over.
“Adam Riker, you are under arrest.”