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Chapter 14

Addie

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Time was suspended; seconds turned into hours and hours turned into years. I could see it all, one diminutive piece at a time. The puzzle remained blurry, and I struggled to capture and hold all of the many facets provided to me.

I saw the truck barreling through the large window, glass shattering in thousands of pieces. It reminded me, oddly, of the rain still releasing its anger on the world. The sky was falling - it only seemed fitting that the building would fall as well.

I felt Tamson’s warm body cover my own. Shielding me from the onslaught of glass particles and the wayward rain carried in by the wind.

I heard someone let out a scream of anguish, quickly muffled.

I smelled something pungent, something that assaulted my senses. Did the rain have a smell? I would almost describe it as rotten eggs, horribly pervasive.

“Adelaide!” a familiar voice roared. I dared a peek over the top of Tamson’s shoulder, stunned to see a familiar male staring at me from across the store. Fallon’s normally immaculate hair was highly disarrayed. His eyes were just as desperate. As wild. As feral. The man looked positively unhinged, and an irrational surge of fear made itself known in the recesses of my mind. It was similar to how I felt when Tamson had treated me like coveted cattle.

The intensity of such an emotion frightened me, as did the lunacy of it. It took me a moment to pinpoint the origins of my fear. I didn’t fear for myself - I knew Fallon would never hurt me - but instead I feared for everyone else in the room, Tamson included. Fallon was a lion that wasn’t just out for the hunt, but for the kill. An avenging angel in the flesh.

He didn’t seem to notice, or care, that wind brought in torrents of rain, burning his skin. Nor did he notice the man that had fallen - the only one without a name. He had been closest to the window when it had shattered, and the rain had begun to burn through his skin. Red, bloody streaks marred his face. With sickening satisfaction, I realized that he was still alive. The cry of pain must’ve come from him.

Doc was sitting nearby on the floor. He had dived when the car arrived, barely missing being hit. Greg and Ass Face (I couldn’t recall his name for the life of me) were nowhere to be seen.

The car doors were pushed open, and three more familiar figures stepped out. Asher, like Fallon, barely resembled the sweet boy I had come to care for. His eyes were too wild, his hair too disheveled, his lips too pursed.

Calax and Declan surveyed the scene with matching expressions of distaste. After noticing I was fine, if not slightly crushed beneath Tamson’s lean frame, Calax placed his hands into his pockets and drawled, “You really know how to make an entrance, Sarge.”

Tamson lifted his head slowly at the voice, his eyes locking on mine. A few shards of glass hung precariously in his hair like diamond beads. Fortunately, none had reached his face, though I doubted his back had experienced the same leniency.

I couldn’t help but remember a time I had thrown myself over a body as well. Calax’s body. We were back at the resort, and a tornado had ravished the area. He had fallen unconscious, and it was instinctive for me to save him. To put his life above my own.

I hadn’t realized before that my reasoning had been selfish. I had loved him, though I would’ve never admitted it, and it was common sense to save his life at the expense of my own. The thought of living without him was unbearable.

The fear I had once felt towards Tamson dissolved completely as we maintained eye-contact. An inexpressible emotion clogged my throat. Forgiveness. Acceptance. Something else. Something deeper.

“Let’s go!” Fallon called in his standard, no-nonsense voice.

My eyes remained latched onto Tamson’s as if he was my lifeline. My savior. I supposed that, in a way, he was.

Dozens of emotions flittered in his own eyes, there and gone too quickly for me to get an accurate read on.

He scrambled to his feet, reaching down and extending a hand to me. I took it with bated breath. It felt as if everything depended on this one moment. I wasn’t just grabbing a hand, but something else entirely. Something inherently sweeter.

I grabbed his hand as if I was lost at sea, and he was a rope guiding me to shore. I grabbed his hand like I was dangling thousands of miles above land, and he was the only support in sight.

I held his hand even when Greg rose, an ugly sneer on his face as he realized our betrayal.

I held his hand as he raised something - something small and black and undeniably familiar.

I held his hand as Greg pulled the trigger on the gun and a loud pop resonated in the air. There was no way to describe the sound. I heard many guns go off before, but nothing like this. It seemed to shatter my delicate senses. Correction: it seemed to shatter my delicate sensibilities.

I held his hand until suddenly…

I wasn’t.

* * *

Ryder

There was an old book I found collecting dust in my foster mother’s bookshelf. The spine had been creased with age, and the print and image on the cover were faded. At one point, there might have been something that resembled a dragon but the design now favored a dark smudge against the red background. I didn’t know if the book had been used excessively or not enough, though the dust was a strong indicator of the latter.