Page 28

F aye

I’m kicking and fighting as hard as I can against Kurt, having grown tired of screaming for help, knowing my men couldn’t hear me over the fight.

Luckily, my struggling makes it so Kurt keeps dropping me and cursing under his breath.

Apparently, his adrenaline still isn’t enough to overcome his injuries.

His entire body is clumsy, and he’s clearly still in pain.

If it weren’t for these handcuffs, I think even I could take him in this condition.

Hopefully I won’t be in them for long.

Kurt drops me for a moment, trying to regain his breath.

I use it as an opportunity to continue picking the lock on my handcuffs.

I close my eyes, remembering when my brother spent weeks teaching me how to pick locks using the old chest in our basement.

I know the skills are inside me. I just have to tap into them.

“Why would I ever need to know this?” I’d asked, groaning when he put the pick into my hand again, his glasses slipping down his nose from sweat. It was the middle of the summer, and he had me in the basement, which was, admittedly, a little cooler than it was upstairs.

“You never know when you’re going to need to pick a lock,” he’d said, using one finger to push his glasses up again, his hair falling into his face.

It was too long—I’d told him that—but he didn’t listen.

I’d said he either needed to cut it or tie it back, but he was too preoccupied to do anything but pace and think.

It was only in hindsight that I realized why he was so worried all the time. He knew that I was a weak omega, what the world could be like for me. And maybe he had a feeling that I would need to pick a lock someday.

Now, I feel the hair pin catch in the lock and let out a sigh of relief as the handcuffs loosen. I’m free. I did it. Kurt leans over me, sweat and blood running down his face where some of his stitches came loose.

If anyone thought he was handsome before—which I certainly didn’t—he looks like a monster now, his face grotesque and badly misshapen. I have to believe that pure evil is the only thing driving him now, because there’s nothing else left.

He grabs me by the hair and continues dragging me, while I try to keep pretending I’m in the handcuffs, even though it hurts. I’m waiting for the right opportunity to get free of him, once and for all.

“Stop—struggling—” he says through gritted teeth as I continue to kick and fight and make his life as difficult as possible.

“Yeah, how wrong of me to make this hard for you,” I say, breathing hard, sneering at him.

I don’t know where my bravery comes from. Where my attitude comes from. But I prefer it to the crying mess I usually am with Kurt.

“Fuck you, Faye,” he says, the words coming out sharp and vicious between his teeth.

“You’re my mate . All you had to do was stand down and let it happen, but you couldn’t do that, could you?

You had to report me about what happened with your brother!

You had to report me about that girl in the woods!

That wasn’t my fault! It was her fault, but you don’t care about that, do you?

You just want to hurt me. You’ve had it out for me since day one, and I’m sick and fucking tired of it.

You know, according to the old laws, alphas can do what they want with omegas.

I’m so tired of everyone acting like we’re not all the same.

Like we don’t all have violence within us. ”

He stops, breathing hard, and when I look, I see nothing but sky to our right. When he reaches for me again, I bring my hands around, shoving his legs and letting out a scream that holds years and years of pent-up anger. But he braces himself, not falling the way I wanted.

“You are not my mate,” I shout, leaping to my feet, coming at him with everything I have.

I hit him. I kick him. Every blow moves him further away from me. Closer to the edge of the cliff. That’s it. Almost there. I kick him hard in the stomach, thinking that’s the blow that will finally do it, then turn to run back to my men.

Surprising me, he gets behind me and gets his arm around my throat. Having seen a bandage on his shoulder, I reach back and dig my hand into it, and he lets out a whining, wounded sound, shrinking away.

“You bitch! ”

I spring back from him, and he hurls himself at me. We tumble to the ground. He gets a hand around one of my braids and pulls so hard I see stars. I gasp for air, then bring my head up, knocking my forehead against his nose, hard.

Crying out, he rolls away from me, near the cliff's edge, and gets to his feet faster than I can get to mine. My wrist is stinging and there’s a pulsing pain in my stomach where old bruises are protesting the abuse they’re receiving now.

Just as I’m about to stand, Kurt catches me on the side of my head, sending me to the ground. It feels like the sky shifts and the earth comes up to meet me, but I know that I’m falling.

I taste dirt.

Kurt walks over to me, using what effort he has left to lift his foot up over my head.

In an instant, I realize I’m seeing what my brother saw before his death. Kurt is going to bring his foot down on my neck and kill me the same way he killed my brother.

The same way he killed that omega in the woods.

He’s going to keep taking lives, and he’s going to keep getting away with it.

Sucking in a deep breath, I jerk, rolling to the side at the last moment. I turn and sweep out the leg Kurt still has planted on the ground. Time seems to move in slow motion. He holds his hands out as if to catch himself on the ground.

But there is no ground behind him. Only open air.

When he realizes this, he lets out a wounded gasp, twisting in the air, grasping for purchase on anything— anything —but there’s nothing. I sit up quickly, my eyes connecting with his as he’s suspended in midair over the side of the cliff.

He looks like a little boy. Alone. Afraid.

Despite myself, and despite everything that’s happened, everything he’s done for me, I reach for him, my fingertips floating past his in the air, never having a chance of connecting.

I hear a shout behind me, somewhere, and hear the collective stomping footsteps of five men as I watch Kurt tumble back, one of his feet hitting the side of the cliff and sending him flipping, end over end.

I rise to my feet and look down the deep ravine. When my gaze hits the bottom, I look away, only catching a glimpse of the empty eyes and still chest.

Eli falls to his knees beside me, gathering me in his arms and pulling my body back, away from the cliff’s edge.

“It’s okay,” he says, and I realize I’m sobbing loudly, gasping for breath.

Time had slowed down impossibly around me, but now it feels like it snaps into place all at once, rushing in like I’ve been plunged into ice cold water.

I’m having a panic attack, and Eli holds me, the others falling to their knees around us, circling me, holding me, letting me ride the waves of terror until it finally sinks in.

“It’s over,” Eli says, and I realize that it’s exactly what Dexter said to me earlier. Except now, there’s probably no more Dexter, and there’s definitely no more Kurt.

“It’s over,” I repeat, some of the terror subsiding. “It’s over, it’s over, it’s over.”

Eli presses his lips to my forehead, and we all huddle together, close. This time, Kurt didn’t get to kill. He didn’t get to break someone I love.

And, this time, my family is here to take me home.