24. Claire
24
CLAIRE
I can’t move.
One second, I’m spilling my secrets and kissing the man who I despise as much as I love.
The next…
We’re surrounded.
The man in the black hat steps forward, extending his spindly leg across the gazebo steps. He twists his lithe frame to a dramatic bow. He outstretches his hand and wears a smile that looks like it’s been carved into a Halloween pumpkin.
“Miss Preacher, let’s not make this any harder than it has to be. You’re coming with us now.”
Immediately, Ransom wedges his body in front of mine. His hand touches my waist, holding me back. “What do you want with her?”
That smile sends a shiver through me. “’Fraid there’s a debt that needs settling. Nothing personal.”
I rear up. “Leave before I have the authorities called.”
He takes off his hat and puts it to his chest like an apology. “ Darling, they’re not going to get here in time to save you.”
That sends a chill through me.
Who are these people?
Ransom acts first. He launches himself at Black Hat, throwing his weight into the other man. As the two scrabble, Black Hat’s companion locks eyes with me.
I try to move backward, but I only hit the back of the gazebo. Shit .
He rushes forward, grabbing me by the arm. I throw my elbow into his face and get a satisfying yelp. When he loosens his grip, I grab onto the railing, shove my foot in the bottom, and start to leap over it. But I’m not quick enough. He grips my waist and yanks me back. The air wheezes from my lungs when my back hits the ground. He’s on me, but I don’t make it easy for him. I kick and hit, throwing my limbs at him.
He sits on my hips. His weight crushes me, and he grabs my wrists, using his strength to pin me back.
“Settle down, lil’ lady,” he sneers. “You’re damaging the goods.”
The… what ?
Limbs bound, I do the other thing left.
I spit at him.
The glob of spit hits him right in the eye. He squints, then gives a low, menacing chuckle. He fits both of my wrists into his hand so he can wipe his eye clean.
“You’re going to regret that,” he says. Then he grabs me by the hair.
The pain is blinding as he uses his grip to yank me to my feet. My scalp is on fire, and I shout, clawing at his wrist.
But I go still when I feel the hard kiss of metal against my cheek .
The hedges rustle. Two more men appear through the maze’s entrance. They surround the gazebo. All of them are holding pistols.
Ransom and Black Hat stop scrambling. Ransom got a couple of good licks in, it looks like, by the state of the other man’s face. But he freezes in place when he sees that we’re suddenly, woefully outnumbered.
Black Hat wrestles out his own gun. He pushes back his hair, smearing his own blood in the process, and points his gun at Ransom.
He pants. “On your knees, cowboy.”
My heart is beating out of my chest. Ransom looks at me, and there’s nothing but calm in his gaze. “It’s okay, Claire,” he says.
“Let him go!” I snap. But when I try to move to him, my assailant wraps his arm around me, binding me tightly against his body.
“It’s you we want.” His breath is hot against my ear. “You should’ve come alone. Now you get to watch your boyfriend die.”
This isn’t happening . That’s all I can think as I watch with a weird, out-of-body feeling as Ransom slowly lowers himself. His knees hit the dirt, and my stomach lurches.
Black Hat aims his pistol right at Ransom’s head. “Any last words?”
Ransom’s jaw goes tight. “Look away, Claire.”
“No.”
“Goddammit, Claire! Quite being stubborn for once in your life!”
“I hate you!” I shout at him.
He chokes out a laugh. When Ransom looks at me, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that we’re surrounded by gunmen. It doesn’t matter that our lives are hanging on by a thread.
When Ransom looks at me, it’s like I’m the only person in the world.
“I hate you, too,” he says affectionately.
The words fill my chest and make it so tight I can’t hardly breathe.
There’s a click as Black Hat pulls back the safety on his gun. Suddenly, I’m screaming. I scream and claw and struggle. I scream for Ransom. I scream for help. I scream for him to get the fuck up because we sure as hell aren’t going down like this.
But he won’t move. He won’t budge. Black Hat presses the barrel to his forehead, and Ransom just closes his eyes, grits his teeth, and his lips move as he murmurs something quietly under his breath.
And then the gun goes off.
Or, rather, a gun goes off. Because Black Hat’s head suddenly jerks back unnaturally. His hat tumbles off his head, and a small, black spot grows between his unseeing eyes.
He’s dead before he hits the ground. His corpse collapses with a soft thump.
My breath shudders.
Even my assailant gasps. “What the?—?”
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, though, before another buzz rips through the air. His head jerks back, and he loosens his grip on me as death takes him, too, pulling him down to the ground.
I scramble out from underneath his limp body and run forward. “Ransom!”
He gets off his knees. He’s wonderfully, beautifully still in one piece, and I find my hands touching his chest, his face, to make sure he’s really alive. “Ransom…”
He grabs my shoulders, holding me close. His eyes aren’t on me, however. They’re scanning around, hunting.
We’re still outnumbered. The two other men surround us, but they suddenly seem less interested in us and more interested in the mysterious gunman no one can see.
That’s when they start firing.
At the corn. At anything that moves.
Ransom wraps me tightly in his arms, shielding me with his body.
It’s hard to understand exactly what I’m seeing.
One of the gunmen screams as he’s yanked back into the maze. The stalks themselves seem to swallow him whole, and suddenly, the screaming stops.
Now, there’s only one man standing.
He looks at us, and I see the same fear in my heart reflected in his eyes.
Now’s our chance .
Black Hat’s gun lies only a couple of feet away from us.
I push away from Ransom and grab the gun from the ground. I lift it, pointing it at the man.
My hands are shaking, but my voice is hard. “Go,” I demand. “Leave. Now.”
But he doesn’t leave. Instead, he turns his head back and forth like a spooked horse. “Who the hell is out there?” he shouts.
I feel him before I see him.
Someone behind me.
No. Not someone .
A body I know well.
“Don’t move,” James says. His breath tickles my ear .
His tall body presses against mine. My breath catches in my throat.
He puts his hand around mine. Like a puppeteer, he lifts both my arm and his. He directs the gun toward the last man standing. Before the other man can ever lift his weapon, James slots his finger against mine and presses in, pulling back the trigger.
The gun bucks in my hand. The shot lands perfectly between the other man’s eyes, and he falls to the ground.
It’s a strange, uncanny feeling. My soul leaves my body.
The gun feels like hot hell in my hands. I quickly yank my fingers away from it and spin around to look at him.
James. It’s James, but it’s not-James. He wears James’s tall build. James’s cropped, dark hair. James’s neat clothes.
But that hard look in his eyes. That’s not the man I know.
That’s not my fiancé.
He carries the gun in his hand.
He looks at me, and his voice is unbearably calm but firm. “There may be more,” he says. “We have to get you out of here.”
Then he extends his hand to me.
I can’t stop staring at it. Around us, the air is tinged with the metallic smell of blood.
The veins in his arm. Those long fingers that cradled my face. Those fingers that, seconds ago, guided me to end a life.
The silver engagement band around his finger.
None of it seems real.
“Claire.” He says my name, and his voice rings in my ear. “Come.”
But I can’t.
I won’t .
Instead of moving forward, my feet step backward.
Away from this demon that’s swallowed my fiancé whole.
But the second I step back, my knees give out. I take in a breath, but my vision swims.
Someone says my name, but I don’t know who.
Ransom. James. The demon.
I can’t tell because I’m falling, and the darkness wraps me in its arms and takes me down.