Chapter 16 #2
“Vi, look!” Theo grunted out, holding my body to his with one muscular arm banded around my waist, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look at the road.
Right after the first car, just seconds later, another car came around the bend.
This one slower, slowing, but not to a stop.
The driver was obviously freaked, unsure.
Just slow enough for a gunshot to ring out and blow the tires.
“Connor,” Theo muttered in my ear, and I realized he was close behind me now, crowding his body around mine.
I’d sunk my body against his, the sense of safety powerful as ever.
“Connor is taking out the driver of the car, then we’ll go in. ”
We watched the second car roll to a stop, and Theo stepped away, checking his weapons, looking every bit the delicious bad boy he was.
So damn sexy, with his hair tumbling over his forehead and his expression intense.
Inappropriate. My mind was a mess. “You wait here,” he said and kissed my head.
“Wait and watch. Our sister is in the second car, unharmed.”
“Who’s in the first?” I asked as he backed away.
Something flashed across his eyes, but he shook his head.
“Just wait here.” He sighed, hesitated. “Take this knife.” He pressed a small blade to my palm and huffed, nodding to the gun as well, before turning and striding down to the road, his weapon raised.
Connor came down the bank on the other side of the road and nodded to my brother as they both reached the second car.
I watched with a stony lack of emotion as they fired into the front of the car again, screams and yells echoing into the still night as the windscreen shattered and they took more lives.
This road was quiet, but it wasn’t private.
Someone else could be along at any moment.
I was conscious of that as my legs carried me to the first car.
Across the road, where neither Theo nor Connor were looking, and along the bank towards the crushed, smoking metal.
I had to know. Had to see. My gut churned as the sounds of fighting and gunfire rang out, but I trusted Theo to be safe. He and Connor had the upper hand. They would be swift. I didn’t have much time. But something compelled me to keep stepping forward.
Reaching the car, my heart pounded as I took in the scene.
Metal twisted against bark, smoke poured thick and heavy from various places, and bodies.
I saw bodies. Warm, red flesh and white bone poking through.
Yellow fat spilling out and onto the glass covered road.
At least two people were dead. The car had flipped onto its side, leaving the front passenger hanging out the window, most of their body still stuck behind the seat belt. It was gruesome.
But I didn’t recognize them, so I felt nothing. Blank emptiness. Not sadness at their death because they were kind, not joy because they were a monster. Just nothing.
I pursed my lips, squeezed them together, and clambered closer, stepping over car parts and glass until I was against the rear window, on the side where Theo couldn’t see. It was blown out, and inside, half conscious, my father lay.
There he was — pathetic, broken, subdued.
I gasped, but really, I think I knew. Whatever had compelled me toward this car settled. The sight of his face took me right back to the past, to the pain and resentment he caused in me. To the look on his face as he handed me over to Rafael.
My father lay before me — weak, unconscious, a gift. My heart skipped a beat.
Reaching into the car, ignoring the blood and viscera of the other men brutalized by the crash, I tugged on his shoulder, shoving away the way touching him made my belly claw. He didn’t budge.
I had to climb in, my stomach scraping and cutting on the shards of glass still protruding from the window frame.
I gulped, squeezed my eyes shut as I pressed into the man, leaned on him to reach the strained belt buckle he lay wedged over.
My finger grazed it, and it popped open, the belt flying back as I scrambled from the car as fast as possible, sucking in a deep, shuddering breath.
No one moved. My father didn’t so much as groan. I yanked open his door and fought off vomit when his body tumbled out, landing with a wet smack to the ground.
“Violet!” Theo yelled, his tone panicked. He couldn’t see me. I was behind the car, but I still ducked. The gunshots and screaming had stopped, I realized. Only a faint whimper and Theo yelling for me some more. Crunching glass like someone was walking over it.
But I didn’t want to stop, didn’t want this to be over. I glanced around, panting and trying to squash back the panic still rumbling under the surface of my skin. This was urgent. A necessity.
I opened my mouth to call for Theo when he shouted my name again, this time with an undercurrent of fury in his tone.
He was afraid; I was missing. I understood.
But. “Screw this,” I muttered to myself and, ignoring how much it made me want to hurl, I wrapped my arms under Father’s armpits and dragged his injured body away from the wreckage.
He was heavy, but I had adrenaline and hatred fueling me like a terrified mother lifting a car to save her child.
I was saving my inner child, myself. This was for that sad, scared girl who kept getting sicker, quieter, lonelier.
Breathing through my nose, bracing myself, I dragged that piece of shit into the wilderness.