36. Chapter 36 #3
I sink the knife into his throat before he can take another breath.
The sound that leaves him is wet and abrupt, cut short as blood pours down the front of his chest. My grip on the knife is iron as I now cut in jagged pulses, hitting that spot that has his life draining in bursts.
His body convulses once against the chains before finally going slack.
I stand there breathing hard, staring at his body while adrenaline slowly drains out of me. Blood drips steadily from my knuckles, and the knife still hanging loosely in my hand.
Then Emma says my name softly.
And just like that, the demon recedes enough for me to turn toward her instead of the corpse hanging from the wall behind me.
My beautiful girl reaches out to me, her hands lightly cupping my face. “We need to go now, Jude.”
We’re out of time.
I nod, allowing her shaky fingers to stroke the jaw of my mask. My gaze finds Alexei’s body one last time before I turn toward the stairs, Emma following close behind me. I yank the mask off my face and tuck it back into my jacket.
In the kitchen, I snatch a lighter off the dining table before grabbing the nearest bottle of vodka and smashing it hard against the counter. Glass explodes across the floor.
The sharp smell of alcohol floods the room as I pour it over the furniture, the curtains, the hardwood floors, soaking every inch of the place that ever belonged to him.
Every room feels haunted. Every wall feels poisoned with memories I can still fucking see.
I dump the rest of the bottle on the dining chair where Nolan died. Fuck you, too.
Emma watches from near the doorway, and when I flick the lighter into the living room, the flames catch instantly.
Fire races across the alcohol in beautiful golden waves, climbing the furniture and walls with terrifying speed as heat slams into us. Smoke curls upward along the ceilings while glass begins cracking somewhere deeper inside the mansion.
We turn toward the front door—
And a gunshot explodes through the room.
Emma’s body jerks beside me.
For a moment, my brain refuses to process what I just saw. Then her body sags against me with a sharp cry, blood already spreading rapidly beneath her ribs.
“Emma.” The word leaves me completely hollow.
She collapses, and I catch her before she can hit the floor, dropping to my knees so hard pain shoots through them. Blood pours through my fingers the second I press my hand against the wound, hot and horrifyingly fast.
“Emma, Emma, Emma.” Her name loops over and over, falling from my lips in pure terror.
No.
Across the room, Vlad stands near the shattered back entrance, his gun still raised. His expression twists into cruel fucking amusement as he watches me realize what’s happening.
“You don’t get out of this without losing something,” he says calmly.
A feral rage claws inside my chest, and I start to rise.
I want to kill him. I want to rip him apart with my bare fucking hands.
But Emma makes a broken sound beneath me, and the second I look back down at her blood coating my hands, I know I can’t leave her. She’ll die. My love for her clashes with the demon inside me, begging and thirsting for that man’s fucking soul. But also, desperately wanting to save hers.
Vlad sees the realization hit me, and the bastard smiles. I stare at him, my heart shattering around the rage because there’s nothing I can do. Then he disappears back into the smoke.
“FUCK!” The scream rips out of me so violently my throat could bleed.
There’s so much blood. My girl…my Emma, she can’t die. Please.
Fire climbs higher around us, heat becoming unbearable now as smoke thickens near the ceiling, but I barely notice any of it. My entire world narrows down to her in my arms.
Please. Take me instead.
Help her help her help her…
“Stay awake,” I beg, cradling her face with one blood-covered hand. “Emma, stay with me. Stay with me!”
Her breathing turns shaky. “J—Jude…” she whispers weakly. She’s gasping. She can’t breathe.
She can’t fucking breathe.
“No.” My voice cracks apart when she coughs, and blood bubbles out.
“No, don’t do that. Don’t fucking do that to me.
Please, baby! If you die, I will, too. I can’t fucking bury you.
” My heart rips open entirely when she whimpers.
Her life keeps slipping between my fingers, no matter how hard I press against the wound.
If she dies right here in my arms, I’ll burn alive.
I won’t leave her. I won’t ever fucking leave her again.
If there is a fucking god…help her. I know you didn’t help me before, but I’m begging you, do something now.
Then footsteps thunder into the house.
Heather bursts into the room coughing through smoke before her face drains of color completely at the sight of Emma. “Oh my god—”
“She’s bleeding too fast,” I choke out. “Help me!”
Heather drops beside us, nurse mode overriding panic, tears already spilling down her face. “We have to move now,” she says urgently. “Jude, listen to me. We have to get her outside.”
A wooden beam falls just feet away, and I shield them both from the sudden blast of heat scorching my skin.
I scoop Emma into my arms, holding her tightly against my chest as we stumble through smoke and fire together.
Flames are already devouring the staircase walls by the time we force our way outside into the freezing night air.
Sirens scream somewhere nearby as firefighters rush toward the mansion, shouting over one another as flames erupt through the upper windows in massive waves of orange and gold. Paramedics sprint toward us the second they see the blood.
“Please. She’s been shot!” Heather yells.
They pull Emma from my arms carefully, lowering her onto a stretcher while hands move rapidly over her body. I stay beside her the entire time, refusing to let go even when they try guiding me back.
“I’m right here,” I keep telling her desperately, brushing shaking fingers through her hair. “I’m not leaving you again. Do you hear me? I’m never leaving you again.”
Her eyes flutter weakly toward me. “Jude…”
“Stay awake.” Tears blur my vision so badly that I can barely see her anymore. “Please. Please stay awake for me, okay?”
She goes limp.
No.
“Hey!” I slap her cheek in rapid beats. “Baby!”
Her eyes roll, and her lungs struggle to breathe.
“Please hang on,” I sob. “Emma, I won’t survive if you die.” My voice breaks when someone grabs my shoulders and hauls me back. Her head lolls sideways, and my heart fractures.
They begin wheeling her toward the ambulance, and suddenly another stretcher is being rushed past us.
Micah.
Heather races toward him. Blood still soaks through the pressure dressings around his abdomen, while his skin has gone frighteningly pale beneath the flashing lights.
“Micah!” she sobs.
His eyes barely open.
I move toward him, feeling like my body is splitting apart trying to stay with both of them at once.
Micah looks at me through half-conscious eyes, barely there, but still fighting. And that fucking kills me.
I grab his hand hard. “I love you, brother,” I tell him, my voice shaking. “You hear me? I love you so fucking much. I’m so sorry.”
His fingers twitch weakly around mine before the paramedics pull him toward the ambulance, too.
Heather breaks completely after that.
A horrible sob tears out of her as she stumbles back toward me, and I catch her when she collapses against my chest, shaking. I hold onto her while she cries, both of us standing there covered in blood while the ambulances get ready to depart into the night carrying the people we love most.
“I’m s—sorry,” I gasp into her hair. “Go with Micah, Heather. I’ll see you there.”
Nearby, Rafe is being loaded into another ambulance while Adela grips his hand tightly enough that neither of them seems willing to let go.
Kieran and Nico stand several feet away, speaking rapid Russian with officers and paramedics, both of them stained with blood and ash beneath the flashing emergency lights.
Behind us, Alexei’s mansion burns like a funeral pyre against the snowy sky.