Chapter 36
Owen
“Becket. Becket!” Emerie’s voice broke through the roaring in my ears. She was crouching in front of me, shaking my shoulders. “I know you’re hurting right now, but you need to pull it together. It’s not over yet. Varon and Ava are on the roof.”
There was pity in her eyes. Pity for me. Had she known Ava and I were together?
Of course, she knew. Shit, they all probably knew. We hadn’t been very good at hiding it.
But now… I dragged myself off the floor, fighting my limbs not to crumble under the weight of the pain radiating through my body. It crushed my lungs and roared in my ears.
She left. With him. She left me.
I blinked at my surroundings. I was running. Running behind Emerie through the museum corridors. She was shouting things at me I couldn’t hear. I was vaguely aware we weren’t heading for the roof.
But that’s where Ava was. With him. Not me.
I blinked again and we were standing before a car. Emerie pushed me into the passenger seat, annoyed by my slow reactions. I tried to focus, but all my mind could do was replay the look on Ava’s face through that door.
Right before she left me. Right as she chose the devil.
But this couldn’t be right. She had wanted so badly to be mine. We both did. She said she was mine. She loved me.
My body was propelled forward, the seatbelt digging into my sore chest as Emerie hit the brakes.
We were in the street. A black car with tinted windows had swerved right out in front of us.
“Varon!” Emerie yelled from beside me.
It pulled me from my stupor. Ava was in that car. She was so close!
“Go!” I yelled at Emerie, feeling my heart start up again.
She gunned after them, and I had to acknowledge the nauseating emotion eating at my insides. I was glad not to have control of the car. I would have driven myself and that black car right off a fucking bridge.
I closed my eyes, trying to reel in the sensation.
No. The love of my life was in that car. There had to be some sort of explanation. She wouldn’t leave me.
One of the cars chasing with us skidded out of control as Varon took a sharp turn without slowing.
He was going to kill Ava driving like that.
“Don’t lose him!” I bellowed at Emerie as she yanked the handbrake up, letting the car drift around the corner.
“I’m fucking trying,” she grunted through her clenched teeth, swerving to the left to miss an idiot civilian who decided to hit his brakes when Varon flew past him.
I screamed, watching helplessly as the black car headed straight over a crossing, right into the path of a semi-truck. Tyres screeched as the car’s back end swerved to the side, out of the truck’s path, missing the collision with a hair’s breadth, before speeding onwards.
“Fucking hell!” Emerie cursed as our own car came to a stop. “How’d he do that?”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t think. I had to get her away from him. He was going to kill Ava. I couldn’t let him have her. He was a danger to her. He would be her death.
“Emerie!” I choked out.
“Yes, yes! I’m going.”
We barrelled recklessly down the road, not taking our eyes off the black car. They were headed to the marina.
If only I could get to her. I could talk some sense into her. He must have gotten into her head again. I had to get to her; remind her what will happen to her if she lets him take her again. Remind her who really loves her. Who she really loves.
The black sportscar drove right into the crowd at the fish market. Emerie stomped on the brakes, and we darted out of the car. There were already agents running towards the car as it came to a halt on the farthest dock.
I sprinted towards it, pushing my limbs to breaking point as I watched Ava get out of the car and onto the boat. They were all on it.
I screamed her name, but she did not hear me, did not look my way.
This isn’t happening, I tried to convince myself. It was just another one of those nightmares.
Or maybe this was her plan. To catch all of them. She could catch all of them like this. Clever! And reckless. She was always reckless like this.
God, I should have more faith in her! She wouldn’t leave me.
The boat lurched forward as I ran up on the docks. Fuck! How do I get to her now? How do I save her?
My chest was burning as Emerie and I ran all the way to the end of the dock, watching the Nightingale speed towards the open ocean.
My knees buckled in relief as a coastguard boat sped after them.
The Nightingale swerved through the boats in the harbour and made it out.
But just as they picked up speed, another coastguard boat rushed at them from the side.
The Nightingale swerved to the right, trying to avoid the collision, and instead rammed right into a container ship.
I screamed helplessly as the boat splintered apart, a ball of flames erupting into the sky, before engulfing what was left of the Nightingale.
I was still screaming on my knees when the shockwave of the explosion hit us, shaking the dock underneath me.
I tried to jump into the water, tried to get to her, but Emerie held me down, pinned me face-down into a police hold.
“It’s too late!” she wept. “She’s gone! She’s gone.”
I pushed past the agents as the divers hauled the last torn-up body out of the water.
Marshall stepped in front of me. “The director ordered me not to let you near the bodies, boss. It’s too—”
I socked him in the face and walked past him as he toppled over.
I ripped the body bags open of the five corpses lying in a row.
They were charred beyond recognition. But I knelt before the one that had Ava’s golden necklace on.
The one with the pentagram charm. I pulled it out of her charred flesh and tried to take it off, but my shaking fingers couldn’t get a grip of the clasp.
“I got it,” Marshall said, gently taking the necklace from Ava’s neck, and held it out to me.
I stared at it as it swung in the air between us.
This couldn’t be real. Ava was not dead. She just couldn’t be. I bought a ring yesterday. We had our whole lives ahead of us. She wouldn’t die now.
I laughed. I grabbed the necklace and clutched it against my stomach as the laughter tumbled out of me.
Of course, she wasn’t dead!
“Owen…” Marshall looked at me with such pity.
“No, Marshall. Don’t you see? This is not her!” I gestured to her body, relief flooding my veins.
“She won’t just die like this. Varon planned this. Jesus! He named the boat Nightingale!” I laughed again. “He named it Nightingale then it exploded!”
Marshall frowned at me, not yet understanding, probably thinking I had lost it.
“She was mine. This Ava. The nightingale. She was mine. And he blew her up. But that means he planned it.”
Marshall pulled me up from the ground. “Let’s get you out of here, okay?”
I laughed as he dragged me away from the body that wasn’t Ava’s. My nightingale was still alive.
And she was deep in enemy territory. I didn’t know what her plan was, but I had to be ready for whatever she was cooking up. I needed to pretend I believed all this crap until she reached out to me. She was going to call. Or email. Fuck, maybe even send a spider.
My Ava was alive. She was out there. I just had to wait.
I would wait for her call.