Chapter 47 Evie
EVIE
“Get the fuck away from her,” Silas growls, dashing forward as Jonathan’s knee explodes.
Jonathan screams as bits of bone and sinew splatter, coating my jeans, my shoes, spraying across the dirt floor as he crumples. Blood pools around the wound, his mangled knee listing at an unnatural angle.
Adrenaline surges through my veins, my lungs gulping air as forgotten strength floods my limbs. Because he’s here.
My serpent.
Silas tears across the dimly lit crypt, looking like an avenging demon intent on enacting swift and brutal justice. Those deep green eyes zero in on the cuts marring my face and the bruise no doubt blooming beneath my eye. He rushes toward me, and I hear the thunder of boots behind him. The Seven.
Jameson gawks at my stepbrother’s distorted leg for all of a heartbeat before wrapping one arm around my throat.
Silas slows, his gaze bouncing from the way I’m working blood back into my swollen fingers to Jonathan writhing in agony at my feet, calculating how best to get us out of this—just as Mavros and Noctis burst into view.
The rest of the Seven charge. Jameson jerks me against him, wrenching my already sore shoulders. I cry out, the strain unbearable, but Silas takes advantage of the distraction and darts forward. Blinking through tears, I see he’s within reach, only a few paces away—and my stepfather turning.
Oh god.
Silas is too focused on saving me to notice the barrel of the gun until it’s pointing at his chest.
Time slows. Each second stretching. I catch the startled surprise flashing across Silas’s face.
Feel the shift of Jameson’s grip as he cowers behind my body, tugging down on my torso to use me as a shield.
The chains bite into my wrists, blood trickling down my suspended arms, but then he gives me just enough slack to pull up, biceps flexing as I kick out.
A guttural cry bellows from me as the chains swing and I throw my body forward. My shoe connects with Roy’s shoulder just as he pulls the trigger, sending the shot wide. I whip backward, crashing into Jameson and sending him tumbling into Jonathan’s hunched form.
Jonathan howls, but Jameson is already up, racing for the doors. Dominic corners him, Glock raised with Bane and Adrian at his back.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Dominic warns, voice calm and cold.
But Jameson is already reaching for the gun tucked into his waistband.
“Watch out!” I scream.
Dominic fires.
Jameson stumbles back, bloody fingers clutching at his chest. His expression goes slack, dazed, before his knees buckle and he collapses.
“Roy, please stop this,” my mother cries, tears streaming freely now. I’ve never seen her like this. As anything other than perfect—yet mascara streaks down her cheeks, black trails running down her neck. Even her flawless blonde hair and tanned skin look frail, faded by a bone-deep weariness.
“Me?” my stepfather snarls. He scrambles to his knees with the gun still gripped in his hand, finger on the trigger as he levels the barrel at my mother. “This is your fault.”
“No!” I cry, knowing Roy’s too far away for me to reach with the chains still holding me in place.
There’s a flash of dark hair and a glint of green. Silas collides with Roy just as the gun goes off. His shoulders crash into my stepfather’s chest, slamming the evil bastard’s face into the worn brick.
Roy fights back, the two of them brawling as leather jackets each embossed with a different sin rush forward, blocking my view of the one person I can’t lose.
I scream when a second shot fires, vibrating the ground beneath my feet. A dull buzzing rings in my ears. The harsh intake of breath and my racing heartbeat are all I can hear as Silas stumbles, his back toward me. And there, at his feet, is Roy with shaking hands pressed over a wound in his gut.
“Silas?” Erik calls, voice low as he stands poised over Jonathan with his gun raised. “Tell me you didn’t let that preppy asshole get you?”
“Not today.” Silas grins, his emerald-flecked eyes finding mine.
“Roy has a gunshot wound to the abdomen, and he’s bleeding a lot.
May have nicked his liver. Jonathan doesn’t look much better in terms of blood loss, and the other fucker is already gone.
We need at least one of them stable for questioning. Take your pick, boys.”
He leaves them to it. And then he’s in front of me, lifting the chain binding my wrists off the hook and sweeping my legs out from under me. Pain lances through my limbs as the pressure eases across my shoulders, soothing and aching at the same time.
“Evie,” Silas breathes, cradling me as he scours my face, chest, arms, legs—cataloging every inch of me.
“There’s no bullet wound,” I say, fingers resting against his heart. I can feel the strength of it through his shirt, reassuring me that he’s safe too.
“You’re safe,” Silas says, voice cracking. “Dom, get these cuffs off her.”
“I’m fine,” I rasp, tasting the lie and lingering metallic tang of blood. Dominic appears moments later with a key, unlocking the cuffs around my wrists. “My mother will need…”
My voice trails off as my eyes land on Bane and Adrian lifting her and carefully setting her down on the cold floor.
A gasping, gurgling sound wheezes from her chest, drowning out the rest of the murmurs in the room.
Blood coats her face and chest, splattered across her in bright scarlet streaks.
Her skin is ashen, eyes wide and vacant as the wound in her chest expels more blood with every rapid beat of her heart.
“Baby, look at me.” It’s Silas, his palm grazing my cheek, willing me to return to him. But I can’t tear my eyes away from her.
“I thought it was him,” I say in a low, detached voice so at odds with the chaos inside me. “The harsh scrape of air. I thought it was Roy, but…”
“She has a gunshot wound to the chest,” Erik confirms, examining the entry wound. “I’d guess punctured lung and possible rib fracture based on her breathing, but I’m still only pre-med. If we want any of them to have a chance at surviving, we need to get them to the hospital.”
“Looks like it’s too late for this one,” Adrian muses at Roy’s side. He cocks his head, a coin flipping in the air before he catches it. Russet brows lift above golden eyes as he reads the result on the back of his hand.
A ragged, wheezing cackle escapes Roy’s chest. And then he stills.
“Yep,” Adrian says, pocketing his coin as he strolls over. “Definitely too late for him.”
“Evie,” Silas calls, his voice almost afraid. Judging by his searching gaze and the frown tugging at his lips, I get the impression it isn’t the first time he’s called my name.
“It’s now or never,” Erik says, pressing on the wound in my mother’s chest.
I realize what they’ve been waiting for. What all of them expect me to decide: whether we try to save her… or let her die.
“Save her,” I hear myself say, knowing she wouldn’t have done the same for me, but also knowing this is the only way I’ll be able to live with myself.
The seven of them exchange a look, each turning to Noctis for confirmation. For one horrible moment, I think they won’t listen, but then Noctis presses a button and holds the phone to his ear.
“Not a clean,” Noctis explains, surveying the scene with almost mechanical detachment. “An augmentation. Two dead. Two injured.”
There’s murmuring on the other end, something that causes his gaze to flick from Jonathan huddled on the ground at his feet to me before he responds.
“One.”