Chapter 38 #2
“You go. We are still on the grounds. If you run straight and keep going without turning in either direction, you will hit the side of the Academy on Hastings house,”
“But,”
“No buts Piper. Just do it,” I wince at the echo around the church.
“What was that?” One male voice shouts out. “Is that you Deena?”
“I’m gunna check on the girls before he gets here,” Footsteps head straight for us and I try my hardest to push Piper as close to the door as possible. As she reaches for the handle, a male form in a hooded mask covering his whole face steps behind me.
“Well, this has never happened before,” He sounds surprised but happy that he gets to do something new.
I don’t give him a chance; I ram my elbow into his face as I scream at Piper to run. This time she listens as I turn to face the man I just hit, only now there is two. The second one gets on his walkie talkie and orders the others to go searching in the forest for a runner and my heart drops.
“No!” I scream and lunge myself at him, my hands aiming for the space in his hood where his eyes would be. I know I hit my mark when he squeals like a pig and my thumbs slip into his warm and wet eye socket.
The other man grabs me by my hair and rips me from the other as he writhes around on the ground. My neck snaps back with a backhand to the cheek and I land in a heap on the floor.
“Fucking Psycho bitch,” He shouts as I kick my legs out and heel him in the crotch, when he bends down, clutching between his thighs, I jump on his back, wrap my arm around his neck, making sure his Adams apple fits into the crook of my elbow and pull towards my body.
The sounds of him chocking makes me pull impossibly tighter.
Even when he drops to the floor and my back hits the cold stone, I hold my position, aiming to kill.
“I’d let go now if I was you,” the snap of a safety clicking off. “I think he’s done for,” My head tilts back and I follow the academy sports trainers, up the cargo pants, black hoodie and up to a face I have looked at all term.
“You,”
He grins showing teeth. “Me,”
His gun shakes in front of my face as he tells me to move. I quickly let go and scramble to stand before him.
“Mr. Chapman,” I greet him with a snarl. Two more men stand behind him, guns at their waist.
“Miss Griffith. What a pleasant surprise. I didn’t know you would be joining us up here tonight. Seems like Deena went a little off script. But I had hoped you would one day take over your sister’s spot on my team,”
“I would never,” I spit.
“That’s what she thought at first, but after seeing the money made from the high-end girls and the freedom she could gain from your father, she changed her tune pretty quickly,” His face always hid something, but now everything looks wrong.
The perfect hair and the highly pampered brows, to the pompous way his voice drawls make me feel queasy.
“Even started enjoying it in the end. But given your talents for being able to hold your own, I think I might have a higher position for you to fill,”
I open my mouth to argue but gun shots ring out from the forest, not one, but five. Five shots then met with silence. I pray that it had nothing to do with Piper, but I know it doesn’t look good.
Mr. Chapman orders one of the men beside him to go and see what all the noise was, his face lined with rage and his brow covered in a sheen of sweat. Even though its late, someone at the academy will have heard those shots. Right?
He steps closer to me, raising the gun to my face, mouth open and ready to talk.
In a split second everything flips.
The door bursts open and a tall man dressed in all black, runs in with an assault rifle aimed straight at us. Before I can duck, Mr. Chapman pulls me in front of his body, my back meeting his chest as he places the gun to the side of my temple.
The man before me pulls up his balaclava and I almost cry out with relief.
“Asher,” I gasp as tears fill my eyes, blurring his image before me.
“Baby,” He lifts the rifle to the man holding onto me. “Why are you always hurt?” He questions.
“I fell over again,” I smirk. “Completely on top of that man by your feet and accidentally strangled him to death,”
“Now is not the time you little psycho,” He smirks back.
“Enough!” Mr. Chapman shouts, gun levelled at me. One of his men has Asher in his sights, while the third is shoved in by an angry Daylan, hands raised, gun pressed to his back.
“Gun’s down, fellas, or Ruella loses her brains,” He sneers as Asher growls, reluctantly lowering his weapon.
“You too, Mr. Bandini,” Mr. Chapman snaps.
Daylan smacks the man in front of him across the back of his head, and he crumples to the floor, unconscious. “Oops…slipped,” Daylan mutters as the man drops his gun and raises his hands in surrender.
“Where’s the other one? Mr. Evans,” He demands.
“He was a little preoccupied… killing all your other men for touching my sister,” Asher grins, the edge in his voice making my stomach flip. “He has one more left to get rid of,”
“On your knees, both of you,” Mr. Chapman gestures for one of his men to hold a gun to my head as he stalks through the church, keeping Asher in his sights, pushing him further from me.
“Now… what do I do with all of you?” His steps slow. Panic coils through me, hot and sudden. “There are too many of you to just… disappear from the academy, and you’ve made quite the mess for me outside,”
He backhands Asher across the face. I scream, my heart threatening to tear itself free from my chest.
“Leave him alone! It’s me you want. Let him go…I’ll do whatever you want!”
He chuckles, dark and cruel. “You’d really protect him… the reason you’re here in the first place?”
My brows furrow. Something gnaws inside me.
“Oh, you don’t know?” he laughs. “Do you want to tell her, or shall I?” he asks Asher, and his guilt slams into my chest so hard it nearly stops my heart. I don’t know if I can take much more before I break for good.
“I was going to tell you tonight, when I came to your room,” Asher pleads. “You told me all your truth’s, so I was prepared to give you all of mine. Start again with a clean slate, even at the risk of you never speaking to me again…”
“Ah, this is taking too long,” Chapman’s tone sharpens, like a knife. “Asher… killed Marlowe,”
My eyes widen. My jaw drops.
The shock should have been betrayal, rage at the secret and the lie, but it’s drowned beneath something darker. Jealousy. That he got to make her suffer. That he had that pleasure, when I had wanted it all to myself.
Asher tilts his head, reading me like an open book. A small smirk tugs at his lips before he shakes his head. His pleading for understanding and forgiveness dissolving into amusement.
I roll my eyes.
Mr. Chapman scoffs. “You don’t give a shit, do you?”
“Meh,” I shrug, heart still racing. I need to get him far away from Asher. Get him to turn his back on him and face me instead.
“You know, she told me a funny story about when you were younger. It was when I knew for sure she was the right person for this job,” My lip curls in disgust.
“Rue, baby, don’t listen to him. Look at me. Focus on me,” Asher shouts.
“Shut up!” Mr. Chapman snaps. “She told me that one night one of your father’s friends tried to get into her bedroom plastered from one of your father’s parties.
That he tried another three times before she approached him when he was sober.
She told him where your room was and sent him your way instead,”
My heart stops.
Instead of telling father that his friend was trying to abuse her, she sent him my way instead. Knowing fine well that if I tried to tell anyone anything, they would never believe me in the first place.
I thought I hated her before.
“She left out the part about you slitting his throat and ending up locked up for three years though,” He chuckles as Asher tries to get up. The gun to my head presses in harder, halting his attempt.
“Oh, thank god you stopped them,” Deena breathlessly moans as she grabs her face with a wince. “She caught me off guard, I’m sorr…” One minute Deena is hobbling over to us, the next her head snaps back as a bullet hits her. The shot echoing around the church like a Ping-Pong ball.
Mr. Chapman doesn’t even acknowledge her, but in the commotion, Daylan shifts to the side trying to reach his gun, when the man beside me moves to stop him, I take my opportunity, I grab his gun, disarming him but he whacks it out of my hands as I turn to him, the gun sliding under the pew’s.
Asher is up and trying to get to me, but the other hooded man grabs a handgun and holds it on Daylan.
Fuck.
Once Mr. Chapman retrieves his gun, face full of venom, we all halt and raise out hands in the air, eyeing each other’s movements.
A shift in the darkness snatches my attention and when I scan the broken side window, I see Jacob.
His rifle pointed at the man beside me, we lock eyes, and he nods to man closest to me, then uses his free index finger to point to me.
I count the bodies and guns, quickly assess how far away everyone is.
If Jacob takes out the man holding a gun on Daylan, our teacher could shoot any of us and vice versa.
I need to side check my teacher and try to get his weapon away from him.
I glance back at Jacob as Asher narrows his eyes at me, I notice his shifting closer from the corner of my eye.
“Oh no you don’t,” Mr. Chapman snaps. “I am just going to get rid of you all, pack up and leave this fucking drab of a town. Looks like I will be around to witness your downfall after all Asher,”
Jacob holds up his fingers and counts down. Three. Mr. Chapman takes a step towards them.
Two. Another step as his finger hovers over the trigger tight.
One.
I side check him hard as his hand stretches out beside me. His body slamming into a pew, knocking the wind out of both of us, but I jump straight back up. The gun is still on his hands even though he seems a little disorientated.
Daylan lunges for the rifle at his side as Asher uses his chance to lunge at our teacher. But Mr. Chapman spins it towards him faster than expected and time suddenly stretches, slow and heavy.
I make my decision in a heartbeat.
I run, diving in front of Asher. His eyes widen, panic pure and raw. I throw myself against him, pulling him close as pain sears through my back. His screams vibrate through me. Another shot whistles past, but this one is from Jacob, striking our teacher squarely.
We hit the floor. Dust and splinters cloud the air. Asher’s face streaked with tears, raw and trembling.
“What the fuck, Ruella?” His voice is ragged, but I don’t move my eyes from him. “What the fuck!”
“No. No. No. This can’t be happening,” My chest feels heavy, like I am sucking in water and with each laboured inhale there is less room for oxygen. I taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth as Asher screams at his friends.
“Call an ambulance. Now!” He screams, shaking with adrenaline.
When he looks back at me his tears fall onto my face as he holds me tight, keeping me tethered.
“Ruella, stay with me. You can’t go,” His voice cracks as he holds me to his chest. “You promised you would always stay,”
I lift my bloody hand and softly trace his cheek, the action so exhausting it drops back to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice ragged, breaking into a cough. There is so much to say, but I don’t think I will get it all out.
“No. I’m sorry, I should have been with you. I should never have left your side,”
“I need you to start living for you, Asher,” I gasp. “Smile. Let the world see it, let it smile back at you,”
“You… you’re the only thing that makes me happy, I need you here with me. Always,” he sobs. “I love you,”
A single tear slips down my cheek, but it’s not sorrow. Relief. Joy. Even now… someone loves all of me.
A dark haze creeps into my vision. My eyelids feel impossibly heavy.
“No. Stay awake, baby. I can hear the sirens. You’re going to make it,” he pleads, shaking me gently.
“Don’t you dare leave me, Rue. We have places to go, adventures to live. Europe. All the food. I want to see you in a white dress, a swollen belly one day. Even your scowl when I piss you off. We have too much left. I need you. Stay. Please!"
I can’t respond. My chest heaves. The world narrows to him, his tears on my face, his desperate voice in my ears.
“I love you too.” I whisper, barely audible, before everything erupts into blackness.
A guttural scream echoes through the church, raw and primal, as the world falls away.