Chapter 27 #2
You are not a victim. “You went after Tonya Johnson.”
“Have you seen the crime scene photos? I gave her a wound to match yours.” His gaze fell to her stomach. “Learned about that, you know. Took some doing, but I found out that you were cut open before.”
She swallowed. Am I going to be cut open again? No, no, that wasn’t happening. “You left Atlas’s cufflinks at the scene with Tonya. That was a major mistake.”
“Was it?”
“Gage thought Atlas was the perp because of those cufflinks. I don’t think that was your intention, though. I don’t think you wanted Atlas to be the suspect. It wouldn’t make sense, not with me right there to alibi him.”
“You shouldn’t have been with him. I wanted more for you!”
“What is that more?” He still gripped the poison. She had to drag her gaze off the vial.
A gun on his hip. Poison in his hand. And a knife has to be close by. While she had nothing but handcuffs on her wrists. Hardly a fair situation.
“I’m more! Me, dammit! You should have been with me!” Fury blazed on his face. In his eyes. In his voice. “But you rejected me, right from the beginning. You were too focused on Atlas Bennett. Atlas and all of his money and his power.”
Now that was insulting. “I don’t care about his money. Or his power.”
“He’s an experiment. A test subject, just like the others. You don’t care about him at all—”
“Yes, I do. I love him.”
His mouth dropped open.
“But he doesn’t love me. So you taking me, you trying to hurt him by attacking me, it won’t do anything to Atlas.
I guess, though, it will do plenty for you, won’t it?
Because you enjoy killing so very much.” Her body tensed because she knew that she was going to attack.
She couldn’t risk him dosing her with the poison.
Shooting her. Using a knife to slice her open and yank out her—no.
Lily shut down the thought. Better to do this now, while she could.
While she was alert. Aware. If he decided to pump her with more sedatives, she’d be helpless.
If he started cutting her and blood loss and pain made her weak, she’d be helpless.
Lily didn’t intend to be helpless.
Magnolia would not be helpless.
“I…don’t enjoy it.” A crack in Benedict’s voice.
A crack in his armor. “Of course, you do. It’s why you killed so quickly after William Lloyd.”
“William was trying to stab me! I fought back! That bastard killed three kids with his drugs! I went to question him, and the prick came at me with a knife. What in the hell was I supposed to do?”
“Probably not disembowel him, but you do you.”
His teeth snapped together.
“You liked it.” She believed this with all of her being.
“It’s just you and me here. I don’t know why you would pretend otherwise when it’s just us.
I’ve interviewed dozens of killers. I know what motivates them.
” She wet her lips. “I know about the darkness that grows and grows inside of you. The need that can get so consuming inside that it threatens to eat you alive. You can’t stop it.
It’s worse than any addiction. It’s blinding. It controls you.”
Sweat appeared on his brow. The lights overhead shone down on him. “There’s a rush. A rush that comes because I did the right thing.”
“You got that rush again when you killed Conry Harding?”
“No one grieved for that bastard. His poor wife wanted him in the ground. He’d hurt her. Bet the woman wanted to give me a medal.”
“And Atlas? You came after him because…?”
“He’s evil. You fucked true evil, and you got off on it.
” His hand had fisted around the vial. “Those reporters—they were live streaming you outside the cabin. I heard the things you said about me. I saw the way you looked. Messy hair. Wrinkled dress. His hands stayed on you. He touched you like he owned you. You’d probably fucked in the car, and then you stood there, having fucked the devil, and you had the nerve to call me weak!
I had the bomb in the limo. I’d put it there days ago.
I could have made it go off at any time.
I did it then, though, because I had to get you. I was going to—” Benedict stopped.
She finished, “You were going to punish me because I, um, fucked evil?” He probably wouldn’t appreciate it if she told him that she’d made love with evil.
“You are evil. Born that way. Just like the others.”
“The others on my list.” Her hands twisted in the cuffs. “Others like…Tonya Johnson.”
A nod.
“Westin Blanchard,” she stated as she leaned forward a bit, wanting to make sure she’d be able to yank her hands up when she stood.
“I’ll get around to him eventually. Got to wait for the Feds to cool the hell down first.” He turned away.
“Hatch Davis?”
His shoulders stiffened. “Got him days ago. His body will be found soon enough.”
Her heart slammed into her chest. “But Hatch never hurt anyone. If you have my files, you know…Hatch never hurt anyone.”
“Didn’t have all your files at the time. Just had his name. Knew who his prick of a father was.” His back was still to her. “Hatch was easy to kill. Dumb kid just walked right up to me when I asked for directions on the walking trail.”
“He wasn’t evil.” She had to blink, quickly, because tears filled her eyes. “He’d never done anything wrong. Not a single thing.”
“Evil is in the blood. Your mistake is that you think you can make them better. You think they won’t be like their parents, but they were born evil. Eventually, that evil will show. It’s just a matter of time. By killing them, I’ll save others. I’m doing the right thing.”
Was that the lie he told himself? Or did he truly believe those words?
“A lot of names are on your list, Lily. I’ll take care of them all. Sooner or—”
She shot to her feet. Yanked her arms up and ignored the ache in her shoulders.
If he’d wanted her to stay in the chair, he should have tied her to it, not just cuffed her hands behind her back.
She lunged forward, even as he began to turn back toward her.
Lily slammed her whole body into him. She hit him as hard as she could, and they both fell to the floor.
But she scrambled back immediately. She rolled. Twisted. She heaved up to her feet.
“You bitch!”
She drove her foot into his face. Once. Twice. Three—
He let go of the glass vial. Benedict caught her foot, and he yanked her toward him.
Lily fell down. She landed on her ass as she slammed onto the wooden floor.
Shouting, Benedict jumped on top of her.
Blood dripped from his broken nose. His jaw looked twisted.
Maybe broken from her kicks? His fist pulled back. “You are going to pay—”
A door flew open. Slammed into a wall with a crack.
Both Lily and Benedict whipped their heads toward the sound. And in the doorway, standing there, glaring, shoulders so broad they nearly touched the wood on either side of him…
Atlas.
Atlas…holding a gun. Aiming it straight at Benedict.
“Get away from her!” Atlas bellowed.
Benedict glanced back at her. A smile teased at his lips. “Guess you did matter to him, huh?” Then he yanked the gun from the holster on his hip. He whipped it up, lightning fast, and blasted a shot toward the door. Toward Atlas.
“No!” Lily screamed.
Atlas fired, too. A shot exploded from his gun.
But she saw the red bloom on Atlas’s shoulder. He’d been hit.
Benedict swore, he jerked, and she knew Atlas’s bullet had found its mark, too.
She rolled away as even more bullets blasted.
She twisted and contorted, and she brought her cuffed hands under her legs and feet and whipped them up in front of her body.
Her gaze fell on the clear glass vial that Benedict had held earlier.
The one he’d let go of so that he could grab her kicking foot.
She snatched up the vial of poison. Then she rushed behind the freak.
But Benedict spun toward her. His left hand shoved against his throat where Atlas’s bullet must have hit him.
Benedict was trying to stop the blood flow with that hand, but blood poured from between his fingers.
The blood had already soaked his shirt. He weaved before her.
His right hand still held his gun, and he was trying to aim it at her.
“Lily!” Atlas’s bellow. “Get away from him!”
There was no time.
Bam. Bam.
Two more shots from Atlas. They slammed into Benedict’s back, and he jerked. Once. Twice. His eyes widened. His mouth dropped open.
She shoved the glass vial between his lips. Her cuffed hands rammed into his face as hard as she could. She heard the glass crunch and saw the horror in his eyes even as he began to fall. His legs were giving way, and he fell forward, knocking into her. Taking her down with him to the hard floor.
“Lily! Lily!”
Atlas yanked Benedict off her. Atlas tossed him aside. Blood streaked across the floor. So much blood. Still pouring from the wound in Benedict’s neck. Pouring from all his wounds and drenching the floor.
Desmond rushed in. With a quick, angry motion, he kicked away the weapon that Benedict had dropped even as his own gun leveled toward Benedict. A gasping, shuddering Benedict.
Atlas crouched in front of her. “Sweets?”
She smiled at him. “Guess you figured out a ghost was doing the killing, hmm?”
His hands flew over her. “You’re not hurt? Tell me you’re not hurt.” Then, “You’re not hurt.”
“Uh, Atlas? Lily? What is happening here?” Desmond’s raised voice.
Lily turned her head.
Benedict’s body was jerking. His eyes wide. Wild. A long drop of blood poured from his mouth. His face had twisted into a mask of agony.
Atlas pulled her off the floor. Up and into his arms. He held her in a tight grip. A tremor rushed over his body.
He was warm and strong and solid. He was hers. He’d come in that door like an avenging angel, and…she’d known he would. She’d known that he would come for her.
Trust.
Faith.
Love.
Atlas’s mouth pressed to her forehead. “Give me just a minute,” he rasped to her. “I’ve got to kill the bastard. Make sure he’s good and dead this time.” He turned to look at Benedict.
A Benedict whose body twisted as if he were experiencing the worst torture imaginable. His mouth had opened in a silent scream as blood poured now from Benedict’s nose and mouth even as the bullet wound in his neck continued to gush blood. All of his wounds were streaming blood.
Good and dead.
“No worries,” Lily murmured. “I already did that.” Though, technically, Benedict wasn’t quite dead yet…but soon.
So soon…
Then a siren screamed in the distance.
“Warned you that they’d follow us,” Desmond snapped. “Damn Feds.”
Sure enough, the Feds came rushing in a few minutes later.
The agents wore bulletproof vests and had their guns at the ready.
When the Feds arrived, Atlas still held a cuffed Lily while Desmond stood beside them.
She made sure to look traumatized. Because she was, after all.
She’d been kidnapped. She’d been drugged.
She’d been taken from the man she loved.
But…
She was still alive. She’d survived.
And Benedict was on the floor. Covered in blood. Twisting in agony.
Some poisons could be a real bitch.