69. Alistair
ALISTAIR
“Dylan!”
Without thinking, I run to The Edge, ignoring Dylan’s warning, ignoring everything I know would keep me safe.
He’s barely holding on with a single hand clutching a bunch of roots from a nearby tree. I throw myself to the ground and slide to him, reaching out my hand.
“Take my hand!”
But Dylan can barely reach for me with the arm that’s still bleeding profusely from the wound his own father created. And the man is hanging onto his ankle, pulling him down farther.
The rocks slip, and more dust and dirt fly down into the gaping abyss below.
“Don’t let go!” I yell.
“You take me with you, you hear me?” his father growls. “If you let me fall …” He pulls up the gun and points it right at Dylan. “I’ll take him with me.”
I gulp.
Fuck. What do I do? I’m not nearly strong enough to pull up both.
Dylan shakes his feet around. “Let go of me!”
Suddenly, Dean Caruso points the gun at me. “Stop moving, or I’ll put a bullet in your fucking friend instead.”
Has he lost his mind? Or was he always this insane?
“Felix!” I call over my shoulder, but he’s already much closer than I anticipated, and he kneels in front of us, grasping Dylan’s wrist too. Penelope runs up to us too, shaking with terror as she peers over the edge.
“He’s alive,” she says in shock.
“Not for long if you don’t pull us both up,” his father rasps.
“Fucking die, you son of a bitch!” Dylan shakes his feet some more.
“What?” Penelope gasps, and she leans in to look over The Edge to witness Dylan’s father holding on like a fucking parasite.
“I’ll kill all of you if you don’t pull me up,” his father says, pointing the gun at Penelope this time.
She freezes in place at the sight of the barrel pointed at her head.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Felix growls at him, keeping a tight hold on Dylan. “If so much as a single drop of blood rolls down her skin, I will rip every one of your fucking limbs off your body.”
The dean’s eyes widen and narrow in a split second. “I’ll fucking kill her in front of you before you even have a chance.”
Dylan’s fingers slowly unravel from the piece of rock he’s holding on to. But it’s the look in his eyes that scares me the most. The only time I’ve ever seen it is the day Eve died.
Remorse and defeat.
Like he’s about to give up.
Surrender his life … to save hers.
“No, don’t you dare,” I tell him. “Dylan, don’t you dare let go, you hear me?”
“I can’t let him win,” he says.
“Dylan,” Penelope mutters, crying her eyes out. “Please, don’t do this.”
“All of this is because of me and my father,” he says. “All of this misery … it could end so easily.”
“Dylan!” she yells, making a fist. “I won’t fucking forgive you.”
His pupils dilate, and his jaw tenses in response.
All of us are looking up at Penelope.
“You die now, and I will never, ever forgive you.”
“Pen—”
“No! You wanted to be forgiven?” She swallows in the face of a loaded gun. “Then fucking earn it.”
Dylan swallows, and his resolve suddenly strengthens as he clutches the caving rocks tighter, fighting for the right to stay alive.
In a split second, he flicks open the zipper that holds his pocket together and out slithers Nessie.
Felix frowns. “Nessie?”
She crawls down Dylan’s leg all the way to his father, who begins to panic.
“No, no, stay away,” he says with a jittery voice. “Get away from me!”
He tries to shoot but misses.
Nessie wriggles her way across his hand and down his arm, her tail still curled firmly around Dylan’s leg as if she’s adamant to hold on.
“Get off!” the dean shrieks, wriggling to get her to fall, but the more he moves, the more he loses his grip on Dylan’s ankle.
And all of us watch in awe as Nessie opens her jaws and bites him right in the face.
“Arghh!” he yells, slamming himself in the face with his gun, which tumbles down into the void.
But Nessie swiftly strikes again, this time in his eye.
“AHHH!” he screams, and in his panic, his hand loses its grip. “No, no, no!”
Too late.
The last thing we hear are his deathly screams as he plunges toward his end.
And all we can do is stare.
* * *
Penelope
What are they all waiting for? There’s no time to lose.
I bend my knees and extend a hand to Dylan too. “Grab my hand!”
Felix and Ali are spurred back into action, tugging at his wrist while Dylan finally reaches for my hand with his bloody arm. Together, we pull him up from the land of the dead and back onto the actual ground. I breathe a sigh of relief as he lands on top of me, groaning in pain.
“Motherfucker …” Felix grumbles. “Don’t you ever pull that shit again.”
Dylan laughs but then grunts in pain again, and he rolls off me and onto the grass to catch his breath. “God, I could really use a cig right now.”
Ali rolls over and hands him one from his pocket.
“Wow, that was quick,” Dylan says.
“I keep this one for a rainy day,” he muses.
Dylan snorts as he stuffs it into his mouth. “Oddly appropriate.” He lights it, despite the rain almost dousing the flame, but he doesn’t care as he takes a long drag and blows out the smoke.
“Here,” he says, and he hands it to Ali, who also takes a drag.
“Thanks,” Ali says after taking another whiff, and he pushes it through to Felix. “Take it.”
Felix doesn’t protest and takes a drag too. “Fuck. What a night.”
“What about you, Pen?” Ali asks. “Wanna try too?”
But all I can do is look at them smoking out here in the wet grass, soaked and covered in the blood and guts of their enemies, completely unaware of the magnitude of their actions.
A weird laugh escapes my mouth from the absurdity of it all, which slowly turns into a cry that won’t end. All the emotions are pouring out of me like a faucet left open. As though everything that’s been cooped up in my heart has finally found a way to bleed out and fade.
My sister is finally avenged.
“Are you crying?” Ali asks.
Dylan crawls closer, despite the pain, and says, “No, no, don’t cry.”
“Aw shit,” Felix growls, pushing the bud into the grass.
“You almost died,” I say.
“I’m alive,” Dylan says, and he rolls over sideways to rub the tears off my cheeks with his thumb. “Thanks to you.”
“Hey now, we deserve a little credit too,” Ali protests.
“I’m alive thanks to all of you guys, of course,” Dylan says with a smile.
Felix gives him a soft slap on his good shoulder. “You really thought about giving up there. Fuck you.”
“Knowing you, you would’ve chased me down into hell itself,” Dylan jokes.
“You bet your ass I would,” Felix responds.
“Well, lucky we don’t have to,” Ali says, reaching for the snake curled around Dylan’s leg. “Thanks to sweet little Nessie here.”
He grabs and pets her while Dylan slowly sits in the grass.
Rain pitter-patters down onto us, and Dylan raises his face toward the sky. Despite the cold, despite the wounds on his shoulder and waist, despite just losing his father, there’s still a smile on his face.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Why?” he asks.
“Even if he was a bastard, he was still your father,” I say.
He swallows and closes his eyes as the rain falls down on him. “I thought I’d be angry. Scared. Bitter.” There’s a pause. “But all I feel is peace.”
Felix and Alistair look at him, and Ali reaches for his hand. “You had to make a tough choice.”
“I don’t regret it,” Dylan says. “Not even one second.” He turns his head and looks at me. “Because he hurt you and Eve. I’ll never be able to forgive him for that.” He licks a droplet of water off his top lip. “And instead of rotting in jail … he can rot in hell.”
Suddenly, a bunch of cars pull up and out step a bunch of my father’s men, carrying guns like they’re about to go to war. But we’re just sitting here in the grass trying to catch our breath, and the contrast is huge.
“Where is he?” my father asks as he gets out of the car.
Dylan makes a face and points at The Edge. “He went flying like a meatball. I think you’ll find his guts splattered on the ground down below. A fun twist on spaghetti.”
My father’s face contorts, and he frowns, confused. “What?”
“He jumped,” Felix says.
“Jumped?” My father’s face darkens. “I highly doubt that. Did you kill him?”
“No,” I interject. “He threatened to kill us .”
“So you threw him overboard.”
“He dragged me with him,” Dylan says, petting the snake. “And Nessie took care of him.”
“Nessie …” my father repeats like it’s all one horrible joke, but it isn’t. “The snake?”
Dylan sports a smirk. “Nessie’s the real hero here.”
My father snorts and shakes his head. “I can’t believe this …”
“It’s the truth, though,” I say, but I’m not sure he’s gonna believe it.
“We took care of the threat. No one asked you to come to Pen’s rescue,” Felix says.
My father clutches his gun tighter. “Watch your mouth, or I’ll put a bullet through those shiny teeth of yours.”
“Felix, Dad,” I interject as I get up from the ground. I block his view with my body. “Enough blood has been spilled tonight.”
My father just stares at me like he’s wondering whether or not to go behind my back and kill these boys too for good measure, but I won’t let him.
They might deserve it, but I can’t live knowing they won’t.
I simply couldn’t exist.
I take a breath and glance at the boys over my shoulder. These boys who protected me with their lives, who wanted to take a bullet for me, who killed the sole person responsible for my sister’s misery, despite the fact that it would cost them everything.
All because they cared so much about my sister they wanted to find out who hurt her just as much as I wanted to know.
I once thought they were bullies. Bad guys. Villains.
But they really are heroes.
Anti-heroes.
And they deserve far more than the hardship they received.
“You realize that Caruso’s death is not going to come without cost,” my father says. “There’s going to—”
“Be a huge shake-up,” I muse. “I know.”
He gives me a judgmental look for saying that word out loud. “You know we don’t—”
“Call ourselves that,” I fill in. “Know that too.”
Now he’s sighing. Out loud.