“One more hall,” I hear Declan tell me softly from my earpiece. “Two men on the right at the corner.”
The eerie calmness that comes at times like these surrounds me. With four large steps I make it to the end of the hall, stop right at the corner and wait. Listening to every sound.
Sebastian and Jase are quiet behind me, but they’re there, both armed and ready with the silencers. Only Jase is marked with a splatter of blood, but each of us has killed since we slipped in through a window, shattering it during an explosion and sneaking into the dark halls of this forbidden castle.
We’re moving too slow. The thought keeps my pace fast. Every second away from her is another moment something could happen to her. A moment someone could take her away from me.
It doesn’t escape my attention that I almost died here nearly a decade ago. Every quiet step reminds me of what may have been had my life been cut short.
Turning back to my brother, I nod and all at once, the three of us step out into the hall. Holding my breath and then letting it out, my grip on the gun tightens, the metal kicks back, and the bullet whips through the air, hitting the back of some fucker’s skull. There’s a sharp crack, a mist of blood sprayed against the pristine wall to my right. The bang of another bullet and then another are followed by the thumps of limp, heavy bodies falling to the ground.
“Four men coming, from behind you and another to your left. They know something’s wrong,” Declan says in the earpiece as the adrenaline spikes and Jase and I share a glance.
“Get her, we’ll take care of them,” Jase tells me, reaching up and squeezing my shoulder with his left hand. Sebastian nods, holding his gun with both hands and keeping his back against the wall as the sound of footsteps and a yell for someone to answer echoes up the long corridor.
“I’ll have her soon,” I tell them both, “and then I’ll come back here.” I don’t know why, but it feels like a lie. Like I’m not coming back.
Jase gives me a smirk and quickly turns around, the faint sounds of him reloading his weapon carrying over to me.
Sebastian looks over his shoulder one last time to look at me before he follows Jase back down the way we came.
Without them it feels different. It’s not about revenge or murder. It’s not about a war or a power play for territory. It’s only about her. About Aria.
I won’t fail her. I won’t let her die.
Fueled by the memory of my nightmare, I move forward. Each step feels heavier, louder than before, even though I’m still silently moving through.
I’m vaguely aware of Declan telling me something, but I ignore him. He doesn’t need to say a damn thing as I come up to the corner and hear voices.
Two voices.
Light filters under the closed door in the dark hall. And with it are the sounds of Aria pleading with her father. Begging him for something.
My heart twists into a wretched knot. That sound shouldn’t exist. The pain in her cadence. It shouldn’t be allowed.
My vision tricks me, giving me flashes of weeks ago. Of Aria on her knees and at my mercy. I wish I could take it back. As my hand settles on the cold steel knob of the door that mutes her cries, I wish I could take everything back.
Every piece of it. Even the moment I clung to life at the sound of her voice carrying through a closed door.
It only takes a half second for me to push the door open, the gun raised and ready to fire, but it’s useless. The barrel of one already stares back at me.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t be ready for you?” Talvery hisses as Aria sucks in a breath, wide eyed and backed in a corner. Tears stream down her face and I could kill the fucker now.
“Dad, please,” she begs him and I can’t stop looking at her, even as the sweat in my hand makes me hold the gun tighter.
“Drop your gun,” he demands and the gun slips slightly in my grasp as I hear Aria whisper my name. Not in fear, not in anger. I can hear how she needs me. It won’t be denied from her voice.
In my periphery, she takes a step toward me and her father cocks his gun in response. The click is resounding and foreboding. Aria stills instantly.
It’s only now, in the face of actually having to make the decision, that I question if I can kill him in front of her. If I could steal her father from her.
“Don’t,” she begs him in a breathless whisper. She still loves me. I can feel it in the way she speaks. A piece of her still cares for me.
I tighten my grip on the gun, not knowing if she’ll still love me after.
If she weren’t here, he’d be dead. I could do it if she weren’t here. But with her watching, still begging and hoping for the inevitable fate to change before her eyes… I’m hesitating. I’ve spent a decade waiting to kill this man. Waiting to make him suffer for what he did to me.
But if she hates me after… then I may as well be the one that died.
In any other situation, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Talvery would be dead simply because he took time to speak. I need Aria to love me though. A life without love is no life at all.
I don’t want to die, either. I don’t want her to see me die.
For the first time in years, I don’t want to die. I need to protect her. I need to make it right.
“Aria.” I say her name simply because I need to see her one more time. I need to know she loves me still. I need her to know it’s okay. But as she looks at me, her father speaks.
“Did you think I couldn’t see you?” Talvery sneers, but I don’t listen to him.
“Please, Dad,” Aria begs, her chest rising higher and falling deeper.
“That I didn’t have backup cameras?”
All I can think, is that I need to save her. In the back of my mind, although I’m looking between Aria and Talvery, all I can see is her on the floor of my office. On her knees between my legs, cold and not breathing.
I won’t let it happen.
“I’m tired and growing old. But I’m not done fighting yet. And I’m not that fucking stupid,” he says lowly and I know he’s going to pull the trigger. “I won’t lie down and die.”
“No!” Aria’s scream rings through the air at the same time that he speaks his last word.
Talvery’s statement again means nothing, but Aria hurling herself forward, reaching for the gun tempting her on the corner of the desk, is everything.
Her lunge distracts both of us. But when he turns to her, I can’t do anything but throw myself between the gun he points at her and the woman I need to protect. The only reason I’ve ever had to live.
My gun fires at him the same time his goes off, barely skimming the arm he holds the gun with as he cusses.
I don’t feel the first shot. I don’t even feel the second, but I see it. I see the barrel of the gun and even as the bullet flies toward me, I swear I see it. The sound of the shot is like white noise and it means nothing compared to the sound of Aria screaming. Her voice fills the room and it seems to drag across time as my heart beats slowly. Only a single beat to her long scream as she wraps her arms around me.
Her voice turns to a song, a lowly sung hum of words; I can’t make out what she’s saying as I stare at my chest, the bright red soaking through the crisp white shirt as I fall to the floor.
My arm doesn’t brace me, it merely hits the ground hard, followed by my back and it’s then that I feel the sharp twinges of pain.
I try to swallow, but blood comes up instead. A mouth full of it that spills from me as I try to say her name.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I think that I should have shot him when I first came in. I shouldn’t have concerned myself with Aria. I should have killed him without thinking twice.
A dizzy sensation comes over me as my head drops back but I force my neck up, I force myself to look at Aria, to command her to get behind me, but she’s not looking at me and I can’t speak. Every time I try, hot blood fills my mouth. It’s all I can taste; it’s all I can smell. I struggle to breathe, to move even and it’s not the pain. The pain is nothing. Something else is holding me down.
“No!” I hear Aria scream, but it sounds so far away.
“I’m sorry,” I try to tell her, but the words are muffled as I choke on my own blood. Hate fuels me to keep my eyes open as Aria yells something I can’t hear to her father. She’s right here, so close to me, but I can’t move my arms to hold her anymore. My body’s so numb, so heavy.
I’m sorry I put her in the middle of this. I’m sorry I put her in danger. I’m sorry I made her want to run again. I’m sorry I can’t protect her. That’s my worst sin.
As I see the darkness settle in, the sounds fade to nothing, and her touch wanes, I’m most sorry that I can’t protect her.
Fuck, no. I need to protect her still.
I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want to die.
“Aria,” I try to say her name, but I can’t.
I try to fight the heavy weight that’s holding me down. “I love you,” I say, but the words fail to be heard. Did I say them?
She must know them. She must.
“You can’t die, Carter,” I hear Aria whisper and she sounds so close but I can’t see her, I can’t feel her.
For the first time in so long, I’m scared. I’m terrified.
I couldn’t care less about life and death. But I don’t want to be without her. I need Aria. I need to protect her. And as the darkness takes over, I’m truly terrified that I’ll never see her again.
The last thought I have, is that if I die, she can’t die for me. Suddenly, the cold feels peaceful.
She didn’t die for me. If the price to change the course of fate was that I must die for her… so be it.
