Chapter 21 #3
The sing-songy voice, with the cruel undertones, makes my stomach lurch. But at least he hasn’t found her yet. There’s still hope.
And he doesn’t seem to have any idea that I’m here.
I guess he’s so focused on her he didn’t hear the car drive up.
I should have parked it further away, but the walk up would have been too long, too nerve-wracking.
And these minutes I’ve saved by parking right out back may just allow me to save her.
Noel is on the top floor, searching through the master suite. Makes sense. I hope she wasn’t stupid enough to stay up there.
I tiptoe around the living room, glance in the kitchen, but there’s no sign of her.
Then I remember the library, on the other side of the house.
That was her favorite hiding place. Maybe I’ll find her…
yes. There she is. Crouching in the children’s book aisle, her head resting on the dusty first-edition copy of Peter Pan.
Poor baby. My heart goes out to her. I creep past the other bookshelves and make my way to her so quietly that she doesn’t hear me.
But I time things well. One of my hands goes over her mouth just as the other tilts her head back brusquely, so she has time to see me before she has time to cry out.
Then I push her down to the floor and crush her under my own body.
“Don’t fucking move a muscle,” I growl in her ear, doing my best to scare her, because that’s the only way I can think of to make sure she obeys, “or I will punish you harder than you’ve ever been punished before. I will fucking beat the shit out of you, do you hear?”
She nods slightly, her eyes wide with fear. Fear of Noel, I wonder, or of me?
Whichever the case, I’m satisfied she will listen. I bury my face in her beautiful hair and drink her in, her scent, her body, everything. I will not live if she dies.
Tearing myself away from her, I grab my gun and cock it. Then I move slowly from the library and… fuck.
Noel really is smarter than I gave him credit for. Cold metal to the back of my head tells me he did in fact hear my car drive up to the house. And he’s been waiting.
He cocks his gun, his finger pressed on the trigger.
“Come out, now, pet!” he calls in a syrupy voice. “Or your boyfriend is dead!”
“She’s not here,” I snap.
He sniggers. “Sure, and I’m Julius Caesar. Go on, Seraphina, step out of your hiding place! Otherwise, I’ll kill your little boyfriend, and then I’ll find you anyway. Counting down from ten!”
My eyes dart around, looking for a way to beat him. The only thing will be to turn around and try to jump him when he doesn’t expect it. More than risky, since he’s clearly going to be on his guard for the next ten seconds. And after that, it will be too late.
But I don’t have a choice. If I die like a fucking coward with a gun to the back of my head, Seraphina doesn’t stand a chance.
If I turn around, he’ll kill me too. But the element of surprise might just cause him to aim wrong, not at my head but at my chest, for instance, giving me a moment, just before I die, to grab the gun from him and shoot him.
That way, at least, my girl will be safe.
There’s no other way out of this. It’s a long shot, but it’s the only shot I have.
“Ten… nine… eight… come on, pet, don’t be shy!”
“Stay where you are!” I call, deciding that there’s no point anymore to pretend she isn’t here. Clearly, he sees right through my bullshit.
“Seven… six… five… up to you, pet! Either way, you’re dead! But you might just save your boyfriend… four… three… two…”
“I’m here!” cries a thin, trembling voice.
Fuck.
Seraphina emerges from her hiding place and walks slowly toward us. She keeps her eyes down, hardly daring to meet my glowering stare.
She disobeyed me. What the fuck?
Even though I know how she must feel to see the gun at the back of my head, somehow, I thought she would listen to me. I guess today’s the day I get everything wrong.
She stops in front of Noel, her chin jutting out, glaring at him fiercely.
Sometimes I forget how brave she is.
“Stop pointing that gun at him,” she lashes out harshly. “You promised.”
“I did, didn’t I?” sniggers Noel. “And you believed me?”
But he does lift his gun—just for a second. A second that might have given me a chance—but somehow, I’m just failing miserably at everything today. The second passes before I’ve even moved, and then the gun comes barreling down on the back of my head, knocking me out cold.
The last thing I hear is her scream.
__
I don’t know how long I’m out, but it’s clearly not too long.
Even though, by all rights, I should have stayed unconscious for a much longer time, given the blow I just got, I guess my body is on high alert.
I jump up and see that Noel’s car is still there, and he’s forcing Seraphina into the backseat.
She’s not dead yet. I still have a shot.
I nearly fall in my haste to reach them, grabbing my gun from my back pocket as I make my way outside.
“Stop!” I shout. “Stop right now!”
He whirls around, his gun planted on her head.
Fuck.
“Stay back, or she’s dead,” he warns.
I pause, my gun still cocked at him. “I suppose she’ll die anyway,” I say slowly, trying and failing to keep from slurring my words. I’m still in a state of fogginess from the blow to my head.
I can tell he notices. His lips quirk into a slight smile.
“Well, yes, but not yet. I have plans for her.” His one hand holds the gun steadily pointed at her head as the other one inches toward her breast before cupping it. He leers at me.
Meanwhile, she closes her eyes, as if willing her mind to drift off toward some place where this assault doesn’t affect her.
I clench my jaw, sick to my stomach. But I keep the gun steady.
“I’m going to fuck your girl,” he sneers. “How do you like that? Would you still want her, if I had my way with her first? If I dirtied her with my hands?”
“So you did rape her before you buried her?” I question, my voice shaking.
He doesn’t answer, merely chuckling.
“No,” she blurts out. “I swear he didn’t touch me.”
She’s white as a sheet, and I wonder if it’s because of what he did, or because of what he might do now.
My mind, in the foggy state it’s in, can’t seem to figure anything out just now.
“Would you still want her?” taunts Noel.
“Fuck you,” I hiss.
He places his hand on the trigger. “Not very polite, are we? Should I kill your girl right now, just to teach you a lesson?”
“No!” I shout. “Tell me what you want from me. Anything. All my money. The Devil empire. Anything you want. Just give her to me. Please.”
The blow to my head really has fucked with me. Or maybe it’s Seraphina making me go daft. Whatever the case, my eyes burn, and a tear actually falls down my cheek.
He takes it all in with a gloating grin.
“Wow. You really have grown soft. Don’t worry, though.
I’ll send you the videos of me fucking her.
That way you can get off to her one last time, before you kill yourself.
’Cause I guess that’s what losers like you do when you lose the love of your life.
” He says the last words in a sneering voice that sends a jolt of anger to my chest.
And the anger allows me to focus, surmounting the fogginess that’s still causing my eyesight to blur.
I turn my eyes discreetly toward her, hoping she sees the fingers I’ve pressed to my thigh and understands. She seems to be looking straight at them as I begin my silent countdown.
Five…
“It’s the pain,” I grimace. “You really fucked up my head. Anyway, you got one thing wrong. The timeline. Because I am going to kill myself. But first, I’ll hunt you down and end you. Unless…”
Four…
My words appear to get his attention. He must realize that killing her is the best way to ensure his own death. If there’s a way to kill her while staying alive, he’ll take it.
Three…
“Unless we turn this into a game. I’ll give you a head start. And then I’ll pick up your trail. Give me an hour to find you. If I do, I get her. If not, you can keep her, and I’ll leave both of you alone.”
Two…
He lets me believe he’s thinking about it. Deep down, we both know it’s meaningless. I’m going to go after him anyway. There’s no way I’d leave either of them alone.
One…
There was a time when Devil’s word was law.
But that time has long since passed. Our honor code quickly degraded when we met Angel.
They don’t know what honor is. Then when we found out Vale was a traitor, and that we had rats in our midst. We realized then how much Devil’s so-called honor was an illusion.
But maybe it all really started the day I first laid eyes on my pet. Obsession really warps the mind. It will make you say anything and do anything, if it means holding on to your possession.
Noel sees right through me. He knows I’m buying time, just as he is. Because the second he turns to get in the car will be the second I have to kill him. He’s trying to figure out how to leave without giving me the chance to shoot.
But he doesn’t see through me as fully as he believes. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see what’s coming.
... Zero.
Fuck. Neither does she.
In the fraction of the second before I shoot, I see that she makes no move to fall down, as I thought she would. I thought that if I got Noel in conversation, he would be taken by surprise by her sudden movement and it would give me the window to shoot.
But it turns out she has another plan.
My finger leaves the trigger, cold sweat beading down my forehead as I realize I was on the point of shooting Seraphina.
Then, I see something silver flash in her hand as she plunges it into Noel’s stomach.
A knife. She managed to get a knife. Fuck me.
She literally has a knife, and she’s just stabbed him.
My little coldblooded killer.
Noel’s eyes grow wide as she continues to slash into him with her knife, and his mouth opens to form words, but instead, a trickle of blood leaves his lips.