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Closer to the street, the sound of cars passing parallel to us surround me as I sprint after him, but it’s useless. I can’t see a damn thing through the pine trees. I keep running even though I don’t see him. I don’t stop even when the cars flying by lay on their horns.
Where the fuck did he go? There’s nowhere to hide. I stand on the curb, listening to the cars whizzing by only feet away and searching everywhere. I spin around to my right and left trying to find the man, but he’s vanished.
Another car beeps several times as the cold sinks in, and I realize I’m not even wearing shoes. My bare feet sink into the thin layer of snow and my heavy breath fogs in front of my face.
Jules.
Her name echoes in my head as I race back to the house, breathing in the cold air and letting it soothe my tired lungs.
The vision of her staring down the silencer of the gun is the only thing I can see as I ignore the harsh weather, and the screaming of my aching muscles as I run with everything I have back to the house.
The warmth of the house is anything but calming. It’s too eerie. Too quiet. I barely hold onto the banister as I fly up the stairs, terrified I’ve played into this fucker’s hand. That he outsmarted me. That he came back for her. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know how he got in here. All I know is that he was here, and he was going to kill her.
I don’t stop moving until I’m upstairs. I just need her here, I need her to be safe.
“Jules!” I cry out before I shove the bedroom door open.
“Mason,” she whimpers. She’s worried and terrified, but she runs straight to me, burying her head in my chest and clinging to me.
“Thank fuck,” I whisper into her hair, holding on to her just as tight. Her chest meets mine and she’s pressed against me like she can’t get close enough. I stroke her damp hair with my cheek, leaving soft kisses and rubbing her back over and over.
She’s okay. Thank fuck she’s here. I close my eyes, but the moment I do, the fucker’s face flashes into my mind.
Who is he? And why the fuck was he here?
The answers come easily, making my grip on Jules tighten.
A hit man. Here to kill. Because he was hired to do just that.
“My father is a dead man.” It’s all I can say. “I’ll kill him for this.” My throat scratches with a rawness of pain that touchesthe very marrow of my bones. Jules pulls away from me, sniffling and looking up at me with a look I can’t make out in her eyes.
She doesn’t answer for the longest time, just staring back at me as I slowly catch my breath.I’m so sorry, Jules.The apology is trapped at the back of my throat.
“He had this.” Jules breaks the moment with her weakly spoken words. She holds out what she found and a chill sweeps over me. A syringe. “It fell on the floor when,” she says and pauses, clearing her throat, then tucks her hair behind her ears, looking past me to the last bedroom. She swallows, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and taking a step away before finishing her statement. “When you were on him.”
She doesn’t look at me, she continues to back away, moving farther into the master bedroom and I follow until the back of her knees hit the bed and she sits on the edge. Is she angry with me? I miss her warmth immediately, my knuckles pulsing with pain at the memory of beating the piss out of the man who would have killed her.
“I had to, Jules.”
Her eyes rip away from the ground and she stares into my own. “I know,” she whispers, but the pain and sadness in her eyes won’t go away. My chest rises with a heavy breath. I don’t understand her reaction.
I close my fist around the syringe as I take a step closer to her. She doesn’t pull away, not even when I cup her chin in my hand. “Are you okay?” I ask, staring deep into her eyes.
She nods her head and pushes her cheek into my palm. My worry leaves me when she leans into me, covering my hand with her own and closing her eyes.
“Mason,” she whispers in a pained voice and it breaks my heart.
I bend down to hold her, to embrace her and tell her that everything’s going to be all right. It’ll never happen again.
As I get closer to her, my cell phone goes off in my back pocket.
She bites down on her lip as I rest my forehead against hers, hating that I’m being pulled away from her. I take it out from my back pocket only to silence it, to give her my full attention and make sure she knows she’s safe, but I see it’s my father.
“Stay here,” I tell her softly.
“Where are you going?” she asks as she reaches out for me, grabbing my hand as if I’m leaving her alone in hell.
“Just downstairs,” I say, letting go of her hand but not before kissing her knuckles. They’re soft and undamaged, unlike my own. I look over my shoulder at her as I answer the phone and pass through the bedroom door.