Chapter 55
elaine
The gun fired with a crack that rang through the night, and I winced, my hands in front of my face, but I didn’t feel anything.
Slowly, I opened my eyes, and my heart lurched at the sight.
Vera, in front of me, clutching her shoulder. Her blood pooled around her hand, and she stared down Quayle with fire in her eyes.
She’d jumped in front. Taken the bullet for me.
Oh, God. With her shooting arm injured, we didn’t stand a chance against Quayle.
“You,” Vera said, her voice low, gravelly. “Am I ever glad to see you here, Quayle.”
“Vera, wait,” I said thickly. “You can’t possibly… we can bargain and try to—”
“Elaine.” She spoke quietly, but it was just enough to stop me.
She kept her gaze fixed on Quayle, who stood just at the edge of the spotlight at the other end, his pallid features past in ghostly white light.
“You already took away everything I loved once. I won’t let you so much as lay a finger on my wife. ”
My heart surged and broke all at once. How she’d come for me. How she’d put the ring on. How she said it like I was what she loved now.
And how that was going to kill her now.
Quayle didn’t speak, just held his gun out. Vera clutched hers tighter, blood running down her arm and dripping off her fingers.
“Elaine,” she whispered. “Go. Escape. Live.”
“What—no! Vera—”
“I can’t possibly outshoot him,” she said, her voice wobbly. “But I can make sure… this score is settled.”
“I can’t leave you like this,” I choked, my hand on her shoulder. She smiled back at me, and my heart shattered seeing that look in her eyes.
Total resolution.
“The others will take care of you,” she said. “They’ll make sure you’re safe. Everything’s going to be taken care of.”
“Vera!” Tears streamed hot down my face, and she smiled sadly.
“I’m sorry. I should have been more open with you from the start. I love you, Elaine. I love you for giving me something to live for, so that I could finally live for the first time. And I love you for giving me something to die for, so that I could finally die for the last time.”
“You can’t… do this…” I whispered, but she put a hand on my collar, and firmly, she pushed.
With a gasp, I fell backwards, over the ledge and onto a pile of bags on the floor below, where I could just see the top of Vera’s outline as the wind whipped her hair around her head. Quayle’s voice was distant but cut through the wind.
“You think I won’t be able to catch her?”
Vera laughed. “I think there won’t be anything left of you to catch her, Quayle.”
“Go ahead. Try the explosives. You’ll be dead before you can reach the detonator.”
“I think I’ll take my chances.”
The air seemed to hold its breath for one crucial, heartbreaking second, before a single noise split the night.
Not a gunshot. Not an explosion.
An alarm.
Vera gasped as brilliant flashing strobe lights flared on around the building, and the outer scaffold lifts roared to life at the edge of the building.
I whirled back just as the one behind me shot up to the top, a heavy clanging noise echoing through the air, with Petra at the front of a handful of other people, all with guns out, trained on Quayle.
From the other side, Yulia, at the front of a group of Whitecliff operatives, and then more people on either side too, the wailing of alarms heavy in the air.
“Time’s up, Quayle,” Petra shouted. “If anyone around here is going to kick Vera’s ass, it’s going to be me.”
“Next time you’re planning on going off alone, Vera?” Yulia said. “Perhaps don’t.”
Vera breathed out a quiet word. “Everybody.”
“Hm,” Quayle said. “So, you contacted Rail’s logistics network… befriended the Whitecliffs, and hacked the construction zone systems. Unexpectedly coordinated from a traitor.”
Vera let out a small laugh. “Traitor? No… I’m not the traitor. I never betrayed my family. I just found my real one.”
An explosion rang through the night, and the scream of gunfire heralded their arrival.