Chapter 41 #2
“You stupid girl !” Jocelyn shrieked, smacking Ashley across the face so hard, she stumbled…but otherwise, there was no reaction. Nothing at all. It was almost like…
Oh fuck . Terror ripped through me as I frantically yanked my right hand, trying to free myself so I could get to her. So I could save her .
“Ashley!” I called out as Jocelyn slammed the door to the dining room and started shoving a heavy buffet in front of it while gunshots rang out somewhere nearby. “Ash, baby, look at me!”
No response. She just stood there totally lifeless, her eyes unfocused and her shoulders limp while Jocelyn cursed and ranted about foolish, unpredictable children.
“Ashley!” I tried again, my voice choked with desperation.
“She can’t hear you,” Jocelyn snapped, whirling back to face me with a wild look on her face. “You think I kept her in my facility those weeks for fun ? Don’t be an idiot, Nathaniel. I raised you to be smarter than this.”
I shook my head frantically, despair strangling me. “Why are you doing this? Mom, please! Let her go. Punish Dad, punish me, but let her go . I am begging you. Don’t hurt her.”
Jocelyn huffed out a long sigh and rubbed the bridge of her nose, like I was being insufferable.
“I don’t know how many times I have to say this.
It’s not about you . Ashley is just here as the latest development in my experiment results.
See, Nathaniel, when she first arrived at Nevaeh, she was almost as hardheaded as that whore she calls her mother.
Almost as hardheaded as your cheating father.
But the more I chipped away at her trust, the more I chipped away at her sanity , the weaker she became.
That little stay at Mallard really catapulted my results, honestly.
And now we get to test how deeply I’ve embedded my hooks into her mind. ”
From the side of the room, she picked up a leather handbag and pulled out a Glock-19. I sucked a breath, terror clawing at me as I yanked on my bound wrist, but she paid me no notice as she checked the ammo, then approached Ash.
“Take it,” she ordered, holding out the gun to my love.
Ash did as she was told, moving nothing but her hand. Her eyes remained blank and unfocused, and her entire posture dropped as if in defeat.
Jocelyn shot me a quick smile, like she was pleased with herself, then turned her attention back to Ash. “Shoot yourself in the head, Ashley.”
“ No! ” I bellowed as Ash raised the gun to her own temple, her eyes still totally dead.
My right wrist wrenched free of the rope, but my feet were still tied.
I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t get there fast enough—it simply wasn’t possible.
I was going to sit here and watch the light of my life extinguish, and there was nothing I could do .
“Stop!” Jocelyn barked as Ash’s finger caressed the trigger. My own fingers fumbled the ropes at my feet, desperate to loosen them, but the blood coating my hands made it slippery.
Ash froze on command, but the barrel of the gun remained against her temple. Her finger remained on the trigger. The slightest movement could see the gun fire, and I all but stopped breathing as I stared. It couldn’t end like this… We couldn’t end like this…
“Too easy,” Jocelyn muttered under her breath, brow furrowed. “Even with the work I did at Mallard, it shouldn’t be this easy. The resistance isn’t strong. Why? Why isn’t she fighting the suggestion?”
She paced a couple steps away, murmuring to herself while scowling at the floor, seeming to be puzzling out a problem.
It gave me time. I needed time. Tearing my eyes away from my love, I focused on the ropes around my ankles, carefully ignoring the bomb beneath the chair.
How the fuck Ash had determined it was fake, I had no clue. It looked real as hell to me.
“The stakes aren’t high enough,” Jocelyn concluded with a cold laugh. “Ashley.”
The way she snapped my Duckling’s name hit me like a truck, and the breath escaped me in a wheeze as I looked up. Ash remained frozen in the same position, gun to her own head. Until Jocelyn gave her next command.
“Shoot my son. Kill him.”
This time, Ash was a lot slower to respond.
The gun shifted away from her temple, and relief hit me so hard, I jolted.
It was like the weight of a thousand days lifting off my chest in an instant, the rush almost too much to bear.
The heat of it smoldered, a fever breaking in my veins, and in that moment, the world shifted.
The relief wasn’t just calming—it was this overwhelming, sweet kind of chaos.
It twisted inside of me and became something desperate to hold on to it forever.
The emotion slid through me, burning a little too hot, impossible to evade but so incredibly inevitable.
She was everything I’d ever wanted and feared in one beautiful person.
“That’s more like it,” my mother practically purred, her eyes alight with excitement as the gun shifted ever so slowly, inch by inch, away from Ash…
and toward me. “See how she’s fighting the suggestion?
See how tense her muscles are as she fights the command?
This is what I wanted to see! This proves my work is a success!
She wants nothing more than to break the command, but she can’t. I’m in control now.”
Tears streamed down Ash’s face, her eyes no longer unfocused and dead. Instead, they were full of fear and agony as her hand continued to move the gun against her will, as though moving through half-dry cement.
“I’m sorry about this, Nathaniel,” Jocelyn sighed, coming closer to my chair and giving me a sad look.
It was the level of upset you’d expect to see when spilling red wine on a favorite shirt, not when your only child was about to be shot.
“I did intend to release you…but this is so much better. I can’t sacrifice science for your sake. You understand, don’t you?”
A quick glance back at Ash told me the gun was now pointed straight at me and the tears were running in rivers down her face. Outside the house, shots rang out and the unmistakable sound of fighting alerted me that help was on its way…but just may not reach us fast enough.
If nothing else, I had faith that the guys would get to Ash. They’d save her and continue to keep her safe through her grief. They wouldn’t ever let her know what’d happened here. They wouldn’t burden her with guilt over my death. They’d lie…and they’d take that lie to their graves.
For the first time since accepting my part in her circle, I was overwhelmingly glad that she had them. It gave me peace as I stared down the barrel of the gun.
“It’s okay, Duckling,” I choked out, resigned to my fate. If this was what it took for Jocelyn to prove her experiment, if this was what it took to buy the guys time to get in here, then it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. “I love you, Layne. You’re my everything.”
Recognition flickered in her eyes, and she inhaled sharply. Her eyelids lowered, more tears running free, and then her finger squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot rang out at deafening volume in the enclosed space, but no pain accompanied it. No impact, no agony, no bright light in the sky action. Swallowing hard, I blinked rapidly to refocus on Ash. Her arm was still extended, the gun still in her hand, but her eyes were locked on Jocelyn.
Her gun was aimed at Jocelyn.
“How’s that for science, bitch ?” Ashley croaked, venom coating her voice, and her whole body trembling as she visibly forced her arm to lower.
My mother stood frozen for a moment, staring in shock at Ash…then down at her chest where the bullet had just struck. All of a sudden, her body crumpled like her strings were cut, and Ash’s chest rose and fell with harsh breathing bordering on hysteria.
Fuck. Holy fuck .
Frantic, I yanked on the remaining knots holding my feet bound and freed myself right as the door to the room was smashed open. Ignoring the reinforcements, I launched out of my seat and pried the gun from Ashley’s stiff hand even as I wrapped her up in my arms.
“Hey, hey, I’m here,” I whispered as a high-pitched, whining sob clawed its way out of her throat. “Hey, it’s okay, Duckling. I’m here. I’ve got you. It’s all over.”
People flooded into the room, shouts rang out, sirens cut through the night, but I paid no attention to any of it. The only thing that mattered was the way Ash trembled in my arms and clung to my body like she was drowning.
I refused to look at my mother’s body as uniformed strangers swarmed, calling out orders and god only knew what else. I didn’t fucking care.
“I almost k-killed you.” Ashley’s little voice reached my ears, despite the way her face was buried in my shirt. “I n-n-nearly sh-shot you.”
I swallowed hard, fighting my own tears. She didn’t need to hear that I thought she had done it.
“But you didn’t,” I said firmly, holding her tight.
She shuddered so hard, her teeth chattered, but I still heard it when she replied. “I love you too.”
Well, fuck. The way my heart thumped in my chest at those words reassured me I was still alive, and I had everything to live for.