Chapter 46B
Alana
I stared in horror at what I’d done. There was blood. So much of it. The gun fell to the ground with a clatter and I stumbled backward. Strong arms came around me, but I didn’t feel safe. They held me tightly as if restraining me.
“Alicia,” I choked out.
Vacant eyes stared up at me, so similar to Jake’s. The hole in her neck was like a floodgate. I’d seen throats get cut on TV, but seeing a bullet tear through her in real life was entirely different. I retched and when I tried to curl forward, I found that I was still trapped.
Trapped. I was trapped. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I didn’t mean to.”
My voice sounded far away like I was underwater. Then, I was falling. It felt like the moment you thought you were going to fall out of a chair, but I couldn’t set my feet on the ground. I just kept going. I thought of Alice in Wonderland, the way she’d fallen down the rabbit hole. What was at the bottom?
Pain radiated throughout my body. I looked down and saw marble floors that were vaguely familiar. They were so clean- pristine. I flattened my palms on them to push myself up, but then something red dripped onto them. It spread outward, changing the color of the floors all the way throughout the room. I coughed and more of it spewed out of me. When I tried to draw a breath, my throat gurgled.
Drowning. I was drowning in my own blood. I was going to die. My head was already airy and my lungs burned with the need to breathe.
I convulsed and gagged on the blood. My ears were ringing and there was a faint sound in the distance. Beeping? I couldn’t place it. Maybe it was my alarm trying to wake me from this nightmare.
“Alana.”
My eyes opened and I drew in a breath. My throat hurt, but it wasn’t full of blood. Brightness made me squint before I could figure out where I was. The beeping was louder now, coming from my left. Someone’s hand took mine and somehow, I didn’t need to see them to know who it was.
“Sir, we told you to back up.”
“Fuck you.”
I turned to look at Jayce. When he saw me, a smile lit up his face. The way his eyes filled with tears made my chest ache. He wasn’t supposed to cry. He hadn’t even cried at his brother’s funeral.
Jake.
“Oh my god,” I rasped. The words burned my throat and made my breath catch.
“Hey, don’t say anything. You need to heal.”
I furrowed my brow, urging him to explain. A nurse shouldered past him, pushing him to the side. The look on his face was murderous. I offered him a little smile, which eased the way he bristled. He took a single step back and crossed his arms over his chest while they checked me out.
Whatever they told me, I couldn’t pay attention to it. There were two things that occupied my thoughts right now. One was the man a few feet away. His presence was heavy and commanding. Even one of the nurses kept looking over at him as if he was a dog that might bite. He just might.
The second was what I’d learned about him before I got shot. Jake, Ben, Mike, and the others. At the time, I’d been freaking out. Spiraling. Losing my shit. After Alicia interrupted, I knew what I was going to do. I’d forgive him and we’d be happy. I just couldn’t let go of the damn gun. My head wasn’t right. If the gun had been loaded, I might’ve shot her. It triggered a whole new round of fear. For a second, I just couldn’t stop thinking about how dangerous it all was. Any of us could get caught in the consequences that would come from Jayce’s actions.
But when the nurses shuffled out and I looked at him, it was like I fell in love all over again. He seemed a little timid as he moved closer. He paused, then shook his head and put his hand on my waist before he leaned down to kiss me. It was firm but gentle enough that it didn’t hurt me.
“I’m so fucking mad at you,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t have given you that gun. I’m so sorry.”
I offered him a small shake of my head. When I lifted my hand to my throat, he grabbed my fingers and pulled them back.
“You’ll be able to talk, don’t worry. It’s just inflamed and you have stitches in your neck. You can’t move it too much for a bit. You’ll have a cool scar.”
I frowned. I didn’t want a scar, especially one that would be front and center.
He smiled at me. The blue of his eyes was enough to drown me.
“You’re beautiful, Alana. Fucking beautiful. And think about it. Your students might not fuck around as much since you’ll look like a badass.”
My laugh hurt, but it also felt nice. “Alicia,” I rasped.
“She’s fine. It was all a misunderstanding, okay?”
With a sigh, I nodded. I had no idea what would happen moving forward, but everybody was alive. Well, not everybody, but that was over. The only thing we could do was keep going and start a new chapter. All of this darkness could be behind us. No more bad things.
*****
My fingers pressed against my temples firmly. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t. Nope. I was gonna go into delusional denial mode. Nope, nope, nope.
“Alana.”
“What the fuck?” I screamed, gesturing toward the stupid fucking fake wall.
“Calm down,” Jayce said with a roll of his eyes.
“Calm down? Really?” I threw my hands in the air. “Okay, I’ll calm down. I’m super fucking calm, Jayce.”
He pursed his lips on a smile, which just pissed me off more. There was a body in our goddamn basement. Again . It had been six months since I got shot just twenty feet away and I thought it was all good. Things were chill. No murders. Well, there was about to be a fucking murder and the bastard was in our basement.
“He’s the guy who shot you,” he said with a shrug.
“Oh, that makes me feel so much better. It’s not as if we could be implicated in this. You have motive!”
He snorted. “They wouldn’t put that together. You know how many people this guy has arrested? He’s killed a few too. There are plenty of people who would be suspects for his disappearance. Us? No. You survived and we both rode off into the sunset together. We have no reason to kill him.”
“Then why are we?”
That menacing smile took over his face. “Because it’s fun?”
“No. Try again.”
“Fine. I want every single one of them to die.”
My fingers went to my temples again. “Explain.”
“He shot you; the others pointed their guns at you. They all contributed to what happened and I think they should pay for it.”
“That’s ridiculous. You hear how ridiculous that is, right?”
Stepping forward, he pushed his fingers through my hair, then tipped my head back. My lips parted because my body was a traitor.
“Who do you think I am, Alana? Do you think what I did to you was out of character? Was it just an outlier? No. I said I’d protect you. I’ll also avenge you. Anyone who has ever made you cry will be put under my knife. They’ll feed our garden and, consequently, us.”
My nose wrinkled. “Does that count as cannibalism?”
His head cocked. “I never thought about it. Let’s say no because that’s gross.”
“Jayce,” I sighed. “I don’t want this in our life.”
“How about one every six months? That’ll give us a steady flow of compost.”
I considered it while I ground my teeth together. “And when you’re done with the officers, it stops, right?” He bit his lip. “Jayce, it stops, right?”
“Guess we’ll see what happens. Alicia wants me to teach her how the vessels work.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Don’t worry. I’m gonna make her wait until she’s sixteen. That’s when I first beat the shit out of someone for you.”
My mouth dropped open. “Who?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of gum. There was a smile on his face as he put one in his mouth.
“I hate you.”
He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me closer. The man in the bed groaned and Jayce’s eyes lit up. I gave him a stern look.
“Remember when he shot you?” he asked.
“I don’t care.”
Jutting his lip out, he moved his t-shirt off of his shoulder, revealing the scar there. “Remember when he shot me?”
That made my blood heat a bit. Not enough to kill a man, but it was a good try. Shaking my head, I headed for the stairs.
“If you ever get caught, I won’t be implicated and I won’t visit you in prison.”
“That’s a lie,” he called.
Maybe it was. All of this was a million shades of fucked up. Seriously, Alicia was ten. I guess it fit within our absolutely skewed sense of morality. She knew about the people her uncle had killed, including her dad and stepdad. She also carried Jayce’s DNA, so maybe the crazy gene had somehow been activated the way his apparently had at fourteen.
Oh god, I hoped not.
I would not have two killer composters in my life. I would not .