Page 82 of Twisted Trust

I can’t take my eyes off the closest body.

Those dark eyes seem to sink into his skull and his skin turns pale except for his lips and the single bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. That remains blood red and leaking crimson onto the shadowed tiled floor.

Suddenly, something explodes again outside and I whirl around in my chair, clutching the hard plastic back as I stare out the window, searching for Levi. Columns of black and orange smoke pour into the sky with flames chasing after them like hands desperate to recapture what was lost. Bodies are scattered across the tarmac and in the middle of it all is Levi.

He’s on the ground getting the shit kicked out of him.

“LEVI!”

My heart leaps into my throat and I’m moving before I’m thinking. Snatching up one of the fallen assault rifles that I barely know how to use, I shove past Elio and ignore his cries as I sprint back out the door and into the carnage. The heat from the fires is overwhelming and I’m coughing within a few steps toward Levi.

A foot collides with his jaw, one hits his stomach, someone else drags him up by the collar and punches him right back down again.

I can’t leave him here.

I can’t lose him.

“Levi!” I scream. My feet slip and slide across the tarmac as I race toward him, stumbling over corpses and twisted pieces of metal strewn across the ground. Levi turns to look at me as blood pours from a head wound and his eyes widen a fraction as his four assailants turn toward me.

As they turn, I force myself to stop running and raise the assault rifle which puts them all immediately on edge. “Leave him alone! Back the fuck up! Back up!”

“Or what?” snarls one of the attackers.

My heart pounds. My vision swims. I taste blood on the back of my tongue and the throbbing in the back of my skull is growing into a scream, but as soon as one of those bastards moves, it’s like everything suddenly becomes sharper and I pull the trigger.

Only… nothing happens.

My rifle doesn’t fire.

I pull it again and again but nothing happens other than the eerie, cold laughter from one of the men. He lifts his handgun, the grip bloody from being used as a tool to beat Levi, and points it right back at me.

When he pulls the trigger, the gun definitely fires but where I expect an overwhelming amount of pain as I’m falling to the ground, it takes me half a second to realize I’m not falling because I got shot. I’m falling because I was pushed.

Landing on the ground with a grunt, the rifle slips from my hands and I roll to see Elio standing where I once was with blood spreading out across his white shirt like a bullseye. He pushed me out of the way.

“Dad!” Levi’s cracked yell cuts through me like barbed wire.

“Elio!” I scramble upward as Elio sinks down to his knees, then I’m on him with both my hands pressing hard against the wound. “Oh my God, oh my God! What did you do! What did you do?”

He wheezes under me and collapses back. Warm, sticky blood seeps between my fingers no matter how hard I press down on the wound. The world around me falls away to nothing as Elio stares up at me with hooded eyes and blood stains my hands.

“M–Maeve?—”

“No,” I gasp as tears flood my eyes. “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare say anything! Not a word! Don’t you dare! You’re gonna be okay, oh my God, you’re going to be fine, I promise! I promise, Elio, please!”

Panic locks like a vise around my heart and I can’t breathe. A trembling takes over my body, matching each sluggish pulse of blood against my palms. It’s hot and wet and I want to throw up.

“T–Take care… of L–Levi for me.”

“What?” I blink and my tears splash down onto the backs of my stained hands, mingling with the blood. “Don’t say anything, you’re going to be fine.”

“P–Please, Maeve. Please…”

“Elio?”

No response.

“Elio!”