Chapter 24 It’s Over #2
I stand back and watch with pure amusement, lowering my trigger finger slightly.
I think it’s the first time out of all of them that I don’t want to just get this over with.
I want to savor the sight of Marone on his knees—one shattered, arm oozing, blade cutting his face in two.
I want to bask in the moment that it’s my girl who’s doing it. I could watch her like this forever. I—
Suddenly, Bunny is flying over his shoulder, blade ripped from her hand, and at her throat before I can blink. Logic becomes nonexistent when she’s in his arms. I move to rush him, but he presses the tip in deeper, uttering, “Ah!” with a beaming grin.
I freeze, eyes between him and her, wondering if I can risk it, am I quick enough to reach her without the knife slipping into her artery? His eyes beg me to try. They actually dare me to.
But I can’t… not when I’m not sure I can make it.
I will my arm to move, to defrost so I can blow a hole in his brain. But I’m frozen. I’m stuck. I’m useless in this moment, too afraid to lose her. His hand begins to travel across her chest, down her stomach, stopping just above her center.
“Did you get your fill of my Bunny, dog?” he taunts. “Did her tight little pussy satisfy you? My men sure seemed to enjoy her. They’ve been begging to have her back for more!”
I stomp forward, but Bunny shouts, “Stop!” pleading with wide eyes for me not to move. Everything in me splits in half, and I'm unsure how to stop this.
Marone’s amusement grows at my uncertainty, his teasing growing thorns. “That’s right. Be a good boy and listen. That’s all you’re good for. Never could think on your own.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Bunny shouts while thrashing in his hold.
“Bunny, sto—” But it’s too late. The knife slips into her skin, tearing a gash big enough to pour in a slow and steady stream. She looks at me with panic in her eyes, creating a fire in my mind.
I fucking swore she’d never have to bleed again. I fucking promised, and wha-what have I done?
The noises in my head become far too loud, but Bunny cuts through it, snapping, “Cade! Shoot.” But Marone is right behind, clogging my senses again.
“Yeah, Blade,” he jests, reminding me who I am in this world, “shoot. But can you kill me before I slice this pretty little neck open?”
Yes.
No.
I don’t know!
And he knows that. It’s why he confidently sits back, violating my girl all over again.
I think I’m going to be sick when Bunny starts to cry, and then everything in me shatters completely.
Bunny, who knows the deepest parts of me, knows what it looks like when I’m about to fall apart.
She tries to save me, whimpering, “I’m fine,” but her throat is closing, and I can’t move without him hurting her.
“You love this little one, dog?” Marone asks, petting her like he’s found a new pet. “Want me to let her go?”
It’s a game.
I know his games.
No matter what I say, Bunny’s going to suffer for it.
“No? You don’t give a fuck about her? Wouldn’t care if I let every man I own fuck her from the inside out?”
Eye twitching, all I can do is elicit a groan—a low, deep, animalistic rumble that promises vengeance. I didn’t want to give him any more of myself, but that was enough to bring a different kind of smile to his face.
It’s sharp and sinister. “What would you do to save her?”
There’s no question. I’d do “Anything.”
Without ever tearing his gaze off me, Marone brings Bunny in close, licking and breathing some hidden words in her ear before returning to me.
“For the most part, you were an obedient boy. I’ll reward you for that.” He pauses, gaze drifting all over me. “Put a bullet in your bicep. We’ll have matching wounds,” he says with glee, “both thanks to you.”
The gun weighs a million pounds in my hand, and yet, with a simple command, my frozen limbs come undone.
“Don’t!” Bunny cries, but all I can see is the blood staining her skin. Her blood, this time. “Cade! Don’t!”
I don’t cry when the heat of the bullet tears through my arm, but I don’t breathe either. My lips fall open, gasping for air that simply won’t come.
Bunny, please, stop! I try to utter it over and over as she fights in his grasp, tearing her neck to shreds, but my throat continues to tighten as the wound burns and swells. It creates a hot band around my arm, so tight I’m unable to feel anything but the numbing sting.
“Let me go! Fuck you! Let me go!” Bunny’s fight is endless, but Marone simply laughs, watching as her chest becomes drenched with blood while pieces of her neck split open wider.
“Look at our girl, boy,” he chuckles, “look what you do to her.”
Fighting the muscles in my throat, I force the words out. They’re strained and tired, but they come out stronger than I would have thought. “Let her fucking go.”
“Not yet,” Marone proclaims, eyes traveling to his knee. “Blow your kneecap,” he orders. “I want to see chunks besides mine.”
“No!” Bunny’s words are cut short when his hand slips beneath her shirt, viciously palming her breast until tears bead in her eyes.
I take another step forward, but his glare becomes hard, forcing me to be still or she’ll pay for it. “Well, come on. Or do you need some motivation?”
I don’t. I nod, already moving the gun to press beside my kneecap.
But he moves, too. The knife that was embedded in Bunny’s skin travels down the length of her body, where his hand previously rested, and points straight into the space between her legs.
She begins squirming when the tip breaks through denim, a different kind of terror in her eyes.
Her eyes close as if she’s accepted defeat, but I blast through my bone before that could ever be true. This time, I can’t contain my cry of pain. It pours out of me as it hits the ground, tears dripping as fragments of myself lie beside the chunks of Marone.
After the shot, I couldn’t hold onto the gun. It lies discarded on the blood-bathed carpet, waiting for someone to take hold. My hands can’t reach for it, not when instinct begs me to hold the pieces of me together.
Somewhere in the distance, Bunny cries my name. She begs me to look at her, but I can’t, not when it’s my fault that we're in this mess to begin with.
I got us here, my brain screams, as my knee roars in agony. I should’ve taken the shot instead of playing predator.
Soon, there’s so much blood rushing in and out of my head that I can’t hear anything but the faraway screams of Bunny.
She shrieks indecipherable sentences. I take the chance to look at her then.
In my fuzzy, tear-soaked vision, I see her melting and flailing against Marone as he runs his fingers through her hair.
Her face is blotchy and red—more broken than I’ve ever seen.
“We’re almost finished here.” Marone’s words, like a wicked curse, break through the fog. “Cade,” he calls, for once using my name. He doesn’t stop until I break focus away from Bunny and place it all on him.
Good dog, his smile screams. “Blow your brains out,” is his final command. There’s no smile, no joy—just pure curiosity. “I want to see what color paints my walls.”
Bloody vomit replaces Bunny’s tears. It flows out of her like a gory river, turning Marone’s flooring into an actual bath. Despite the carnage getting all over his hand, Marone’s attention is only on me—and the gun all alone.
“Pick it up.”
My heart races in my chest, each beat against my ribs cracking the bone a little more until I’m ruined altogether.
There’s no stopping my tears or the fist in my throat reaching for the battering organ.
I’ve never shown Marone any weakness, but I beg now.
I reduce myself to nothing because it’s the only way I can live with her.
“Please.”
But all Marone does is laugh. “Pick it up, or I fucking gut her.”
“Let him!” Bunny throws herself against the blade, attempting to gut herself if that means I get to live. She comes close to impaling herself a few times, killing me further, but Marone stops her every time—jerking her left and right before muttering vile words in her ear.
“He’s not yours!” Bunny shouts in response, her eyes pleading for me to understand who I actually belong to.
You’re mine.
And you’re mine, too, Bun.
Whatever he sees passing between Bunny and me, Marone can’t stand it, patience finally exploding into the monster I knew. “Fucking now!” he roars, spit flying. “Pick up that fucking gun, or I will fuck her on this knife and make you swallow her fucking insides! Pick up the fucking gun, dog!”
The image he paints sends vomit up my own throat, but I swallow the burning fluid before shouting, “Okay!” I thought, lying on the ground, the pain in my body couldn’t be any worse, but when I put my weight on my hands and put my weight onto the shattered bones inside my knee, life spins out underneath me.
Tears, bile, and blood spew from my lips, but I crawl forward. Fragments of bone pierce through my skin with each inch until I’m a pincushion with a gun. When the heavy metal is back in my hand, I look up between sweaty strands of hair.
I know I’m not going to make it out of this, and from the look in her eyes, Bunny knows too. Don’t be afraid, I want to tell her, but instead, I finally mouth the truth.
I love you.
“Cade…” she sobs. “Please.”
I mouth it over and over again as I fight my way to my feet.
I love you, Bunny. They’re my final words as I put the gun in between my teeth.
I tell myself I’m ready, but my finger shakes, unable to stay on the trigger long enough to pull.
My chest cracks with every breath, but I pray it doesn’t hurt.
Look, mama. I still pray.
I no longer hear Bunny or Marone. It’s only me and all the things I never got to say—only flashes of dreams I’ll never get to have.
I was supposed to grow old and die with my love.
I was supposed to have Bunny, until the e—
*Oh, Gemini- ROLE MODEL*