Chapter 41
VAUGHN
There comes a point when the madness becomes too much.
When the thing you call sanity comes crashing to the ground.
When who you think you are, and what you think you know, splits in two before your very eyes.
After that, it’s nothing but a black downward spiral.
I stare in horror as Evelina looks right at that part of my mind that I try to keep locked away.
Acknowledging him.
Seeing him as a physical presence.
That’s what breaks me.
I drop to my knees, shaking, my vision blurring in and out. Little lightning storms flash and thunder behind my eyes, making me glitch and twitch, my eyes just staring at Evelina as she stares in horror at the man pointing a gun at her.
Not me.
Not my hand.
Not my gun.
His gun, in his hand.
How is this real.
How is she seeing him.
Maybe she’s a fucking crazy as we are, motherfucker, Demon snarls inside of me. Maybe that’s why your dick gets so fucking hard for her, and why you follow her around like a beaten dog. Crazy recognized craaaaaaazy, you stupid fuck.
I don’t know how to respond to that. All I can do is stare as Evelina walks into the room when Quentin tells her to and sits in the chair he indicates. She's shaking, her eyes wide with terror. They dart to me, and I see the plea in them.
Help me.
Do something.
Save me.
But how do I save her from a part of me that I don’t have any control over?
I can’t compartmentalize this anymore, not when it’s leering in my face. Now when it’s pointing a gun at the woman I love with more of me than I’ve even ever loved myself with.
Why am I doing this.
Why can’t I stop.
I see Quentin holding a gun in her face, yet I know he is me. I know that it’s me shoving her into that chair, pointing death at her face, threatening her, making her quail with fear, breaking her heart.
And I can’t fucking stop it.
Reality blurs.
Cracks.
And shatters.
Quentin walks over to me, and I’m numb as he pulls the crop from my shaking hand and replaces it with the grip of the gun.
Icy cold cuts into me as he lifts me to my feet, wraps my fingers around the gun, and then raises my hand, until the gun is pointed right at Evelina’s horrified, tear-streaked face.
She’s sobbing. She’s telling me he’s real, she can see him, I can stop this.
She’s wrong.
I don’t think I can.
“Do it,” Quentin snarls. “You’ve spent your life building up to this! Seize the throne that you were born to, Grandson! There’s only you and the Syndicate! There is no room for distractions like her.”
My hand holding the gun trembles and then drops to my side as my head slowly shakes.
“No,” I hear myself choke. “No, I won’t—”
Fire erupts over my face as the crop lashes across my cheek, splitting it open. I go stumbling back and fall to the ground, the gun clattering across the floor.
Evelina screams and lurches from the chair. Then she cries out, her head snapping to the side as the back of Quentin’s hand cracks across her mouth.
The back of my hand…
I see Quentin calmly pick up the gun.
The barrel presses to my forehead, and I gently close my eyes.
Maybe this is the only way to save her.
From me.
“You told me once you were willing to do whatever it took to lead the Syndicate,” Quentin murmurs quietly. “That you would do anything.”
“I was wrong,” I hear myself say.
He exhales. “Then I fear you are not fit to lead this organization.”
Blinding pain and light explode behind my eyes as the barrel of the gun slams to the side of my head. It hits me again and again, wet, sticky blood splattering my face and dripping into my eyes as I drop a hand to the floor to steady myself.
Evelina is screaming my name and sobbing. I look up just as she lurches from the chair again. I watch in stunned, slow-motion horror as Quentin brings his hand back and cracks the gun across her face, sending her back into the chair.
I watch him bring the barrel back up and point it between her tearful eyes.
That's the moment when it clicks into place.
When the shattered parts of me strewn like broken glass across the floor fling back together, like a tape being playing in reverse.
Puzzle pieces find their places.
Fractures meld together.
The roaring in my head dulls, and suddenly, I have utter clarity.
He is not we, is he?
You finally see the truth. No, motherfucker, he’s not.
Because I would never hurt her like that. I couldn’t. I know that with visceral, grounding certainty.
I feel it in my veins, down to the core of my being.
I would never put a gun to her face.
And that’s what shatters the illusion. That’s what rips down the gauzy veil and lets reality come glaring in on me.
The man with a gun to her head isn’t me. He can't be.
He’s not a manifestation of my broken, fractured mind.
He’s fucking real.
He’s alive.
And if he's alive, he can fucking die.
Quentin grunts when I crash into him, sending him clean off his feet and slamming him into the wall.
I roar, scrambling to bring the gun up. Just as I do, pain bites into me, taking my breath away.
Wetness floods my skin. Evelina screams, and I look down in confusion at the blood pouring from my side.
Fire erupts through me when Quentin slashes the blade across my ribs again. My vision kaleidoscopes as I stumble to the side.
“That was foolish, Grandson,” he exhales quietly. “Very, very foolish.”
I groan and drop to my knees as he turns to Evelina. He slips the knife into the back of his belt and then stoops slightly to pick up the riding crop.
“I wonder what would break you first, Grandson,” he muses.
“Watching me whip her pretty face to ribbons? Or maybe going after her legs and feet, and clipping the dancer’s wings right in front of you.
” He turns to level a cold look at me. “I wonder if that would make you see what is necessary in order to lead.”
“I…”
I choke on the words as blood trickles down the back of my throat. My head swims, and I’m barely clinging to consciousness as my eyes slide from Quentin to the only person ever to have pulled me from my own madness.
The only person who’s ever seen the real me.
The only woman I’ve ever loved.
My gaze slides lethally back to Quentin.
“In the next sixrty seconds,” I mumble, blood trickling from my split lip and pouring from the stab wounds in my side, “I’m going to kill you.”
Quentin almost smiles with sick pride, shaking his head. “Yes! There's the monster I need, Grandson. There’s the savagery required to lead the Syndicate. Together, we will—”
“No,” I burble, my vision blurring. “No we. Because I’m going to kill you.”
His stares coldly at me, and his lips curl dangerously. “The face it is, then.”
He turns to Evelina as adrenaline explodes through my system.
But suddenly, Quentin cries out and twists violently. Blood splatters from the back of his head as it snaps to the side.
I don’t have time to dwell on the how or the what.
With my last surge of energy, I lurch from the ground, grab the knife from the back of Quentin’s belt, and ram it as hard as I can between his shoulder blades.
Quentin screams in agony, his back contorting as I yank the blade out and then jam it in again.
And again.
And fucking again, until finally it hits home in the side of his neck.
Blood erupts from the wound as he claws at the hilt of the knife, stumbling, tripping, falling to the ground.
Then he goes still.
Evelina cries out as I rush to her and wrap her trembling body in my arms.
“I’m right here,” I murmur against her neck. “I’m here, princess,” I choke. “Just me. Just me. Just—”
“Vaughn—”
Her grip on me tightens, then releases, and she taps on my back frantically.
“Vaughn,” she chokes as she pulls away, staring past me in utter disbelief.
I wince as I turn…
What the fuck.
Because I suddenly see that it was a fire poker that hit Quentin in the head. And I see that, because the person who hit him with it is standing right there shaking, eyeing both of us nervously as her chest rises and falls with heavy breath.
STANDING right there.
“So…” Sabine says quietly as she drops the fire poker with a heavy clang. “Surprise.”