Chapter 18 Shay #2
“Propofol,” he said clinically. “High dose, injected directly into the jugular vein. She won’t even know anything’s wrong. It’ll be like going to sleep and never waking up.”
He held it out to me, the syringe balanced on his palm like an offering.
“No,” I told him, but the word came out weak.
“Think about Caroline Carter. Think about what Eliza Taylor did to her, what she allowed to be done. Think about the thirty-six others. Think about the children she’ll destroy if she walks away from this.”
He leaned closer, his eyes burning with conviction. “There’s nothing you can do to change her fate, Shay. She’s dead either way. But this—this is your chance to understand.”
I stared at the syringe. At the unconscious woman on the floor. At Tom’s face, so earnest and passionate, completely convinced of his own righteousness.
He was right about one thing. There was nothing I could do to save her.
Did she even deserve to be saved?
No. I couldn’t allow myself to think like that. Couldn’t start down that road.
It didn’t matter anyway. Not really. She was dead. Whether I participated or not, whether I watched or looked away, whether I screamed in protest or remained silent—the outcome was the same. Tom would kill her if I didn’t. One way or another, Eliza Taylor’s life would end in this basement.
But if I did it—if I took that syringe and plunged it into her neck—what would that make me?
Did I have a choice either way?
“She won’t feel anything?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Hope flared in Tom’s eyes, bright and terrible, like a match struck in darkness. “Nothing. I promise. It’ll be like going to sleep.”
I told myself the same thing. Repeated it like a mantra. She won’t feel a thing. It would be like going to sleep. A mercy, really. Better than she deserved.
I told myself I was doing this to survive. That this was an act of self-preservation, that anyone in my position would do the same thing.
I told myself so many lies in those few seconds, building a fortress of justification around the terrible thing I was about to do.
And then I reached out with shaking hands and took the syringe from him.
It was heavier than I expected, the weight of it disproportionate to its size.
Tom uncuffed one of my wrists, leaving the other chained. It gave me just enough freedom to move more freely. He helped me stand, steadying me when my legs threatened to give out.
We moved toward the woman together. Eliza Taylor. Child trafficker. Monster.
The labels were supposed to make it easier, but they felt insufficient against the reality of what I was about to do.
I knelt beside her, the syringe clutched in my hand. Her face was peaceful in unconsciousness. She looked like someone’s mother. Someone’s daughter. Ordinary. Human.
“The jugular,” Tom said softly, kneeling beside me. His hand covered mine, warm and steady, guiding it to her neck. “Right there. Feel the pulse? That’s where you need to go. Quick and firm. Don’t hesitate. It’ll be over in seconds, and then she won’t hurt anyone else ever again.”
I positioned the needle, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hold it steady. The point of it touched her skin, dimpling the surface, and I felt the resistance of flesh that didn’t want to be pierced.
I looked at the woman beneath me. At Eliza Taylor, who’d smiled at children while damning them to hell. Who’d destroyed thirty-seven lives and walked free. Who would destroy more if she lived.
At the life I was about to end with my own hands. An act that I could never take back or pretend it didn’t happen.
The syringe trembled in my grip, the needle catching the light.
I pressed it against her skin. Felt the moment it pierced through, that subtle pop of resistance giving way.
I pushed the plunger with steady pressure.
I watched the clear liquid disappear into her bloodstream, propofol flooding her system, a wave of chemical death spreading through her veins with each heartbeat.
Her pulse continued steady for a moment, strong and regular beneath my fingers.
Then it began to slow. Her breathing grew shallower, each breath further apart than the last. The life was draining out of her in intervals too small to see but impossible to miss, like watching sand slip through an hourglass one grain at a time.
I forced myself to watch, to bear witness to what I’d done. To not look away, not hide from it. If I was going to cross this line, I would do it with open eyes.
When her pulse stopped—when the rise and fall of her chest went still and the last breath left her body—I set the empty syringe down on the concrete floor.
I’d just killed someone.
The reality of it crashed over me in waves, each one threatening to pull me under. But I couldn’t afford to drown in it. Not yet. Not while Tom was watching with that expression on his face—that terrible hope and joy lighting him up from within, making him look almost beautiful in his madness.
I turned to him slowly.
I reached up and cupped his face in both hands, the way I used to before everything fell apart.
My palms were against his cheeks, thumbs brushing his cheekbones with the gentleness of a lover’s touch.
His eyes fluttered closed at the intimate gesture, like a man dying of thirst finally given water.
It was the kind of touch he’d been desperate for since the moment he’d taken me, the acceptance he’d been craving.
I felt the weight of his attention, his hope, his desperate need radiating off him. This was what he’d wanted all along—not just my compliance but my understanding. My acceptance. My love, twisted and broken as it would have to be.
“I understand you,” I said, my voice soft. Loving. Everything he wanted to hear. “I see you now.”
There was love in his eyes. Pure, undiluted love, shining like something holy.
He reached for the cuff still locked around my wrist, fumbling for the key in his pocket with trembling fingers. So eager to free me, to hold me properly, to celebrate this terrible communion we’d just shared.
The cuff clicked open. The metal fell away.
I was free.
For one perfect moment, we stared at each other. His hands were placed over mine, while mine held his face between my palms. A sweet and tender moment that could have been beautiful in another life, in another universe, if we had been anyone other than Tom Hayes and Shay Sawyer.
Then I drove my forehead into his nose with every ounce of strength I had.
The crack of cartilage breaking was sickeningly loud, a wet crunch that echoed in the basement. Tom fell backward with a cry of pain and surprise, his hands flying up to his face as blood poured between his fingers.
I didn’t wait.
Didn’t think.
Didn’t hesitate.
I just picked myself up and started running.
I heard Tom shouting behind me, scrambling to his feet, his voice thick and garbled through his broken nose. But I didn’t look back. Looking back would only slow me down.
Thirteen steps were taken three at a time, my hand on the railing, pulling myself up with desperate strength. Momentum and desperation carried me when muscle failed, when my legs screamed in protest.
The basement door was open—he’d left it open, careless in his moment of triumph—and I crashed through it into the main floor of the house. The front door was visible from here—across the living room, through familiar space, thirty feet that might as well have been thirty miles.
Behind me, Tom’s footsteps pounded up the basement stairs, heavy and furious.
I ran.
Through the kitchen where he’d cooked me meals. Past the dining table where we’d eaten together. Past the couch where we used to curl up and watch movies, my head on his shoulder, his arm around me. Past all the relics of a life that we used to have.
My lungs burned, my vision narrowing at the edges. But adrenaline carried me forward, primitive and powerful, drowning out the voice in my head screaming that I’d never make it, that I was too weak, too slow.
I could hear him behind me, closing the distance. He was faster, not weakened by weeks of captivity.
My hand reached out, fingers closing around the doorknob.
The door flew open, and I crashed into the world beyond Tom’s carefully constructed prison. The cold outside air hit my face like a baptism, sharp and clean, carrying the scent of pine and earth. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever felt.
I kept running.
Down the porch steps, my bare feet hitting wood. Across the gravel driveway that tore at my soles, each stone a small knife. I didn’t know where I was going, didn’t have a plan beyond being anywhere but here. Distance was the only goal. Survival the only strategy.
Behind me, I heard Tom in the doorway. Heard him shout my name—raw and desperate and furious, all at once, pain and betrayal wrapped in one single syllable.
But I didn’t stop.
I didn’t dare look back.
I ran toward the trees. A wall of them rose ahead like the ramparts of some ancient fortress, dark and dense and forbidding. They promised shelter, concealment, sanctuary.
Behind me, Tom’s footsteps were gaining ground. I could hear his breathing, harsh and ragged, could hear him calling my name with increasing desperation.
“Shay! Shay, stop! Please!”
As if there was anything he could say that would make me turn around. My legs were moving on pure adrenaline now, my body running on fumes and the desperate animal instinct to run.
One moment I was under the open sky, and the next I was enveloped in darkness so complete it was like being swallowed whole. The canopy overhead blocked out what little light remained in the sky, and the underbrush immediately began clawing at my legs, my clothes, my skin.