Something shifted inside of me at those words. Grief mixed with a sympathy that had no place anywhere near me.
She hadn’t heard yet.
She didn’t know.
She must not have been able to hear me all the way across the courtyard when I told her husband.
“He’s dead,” I told her. “Kane is dead.”
An emotion, so strong that I thought it would crack her in half, flashed across her face and settled on her entire being. “No, he’s not,” she argued.
I swallowed against my own grief now swelling in my throat and promised her, “He is. I watched him die.”
“You killed him,” she hissed at me. Her eyes were now crazed with fury and vengeance. They glossed over from the pain I knew she felt for her son, but I couldn’t decipher the tears from the rain.
“I didn’t. I swear I didn’t kill him.”
“Then how?” Her words scraped across the ground. They were so impossibly heavy, so weighted with only the sorrow a mother could feel.
“Feeders,” I whispered. Her grief affected me in a way I didn’t expect. I thought it would feel good to deliver the news to these two psychopaths. I thought I would feel some justice in telling the Allens their favorite son, their heir and hope for the future had died in an effort to save me.
But I didn’t feel any sense of satisfaction or reward.
In fact, I felt nothing but wretchedness and disgust.
It didn’t matter who these people were, or the crimes they committed, they’d lost a child. And he had chosen to end his life that way. Plus, I had to contend with my already manifested guilt because I had cared deeply for Kane and he’d killed himself for me and the people I loved.
I must have been some kind of masochist because even while she glared at me with the ultimate depth of hate and loathing, I felt like I deserved it.
I felt like she should hate me. She should want to kill me.
She was Kane’s mother; of course, she would believe she deserved justice and retribution.
I would have felt the same thing.
I still hated her. I hated her with everything within me, with all the pieces of me that fought for good, and justice and life, for every ounce of my moral compass and seemingly endless compassion. I hated her because of how she abused her children, how she ignored their pain and let them suffer at the hands of their father. I hated her for how she treated Page and me. For her role in the Colony’s existence, the downfall of the compound and, in a roundabout but poignant way, for Gage’s death. I hated her for this moment and all the moments leading up to this moment.
But most of all, I hated her for making me feel guilty. I hated her for forcing me to feel a pang of regret and sympathy for her. I hated that she was justified in her sorrow because she gave birth to Kane.
Even if that was where her motherly accolades ended.
I’d come full circle. I backed off because I couldn’t imagine using my bare hands to take a life but now that I stared at her, while her sins continued to build and her case continued to disintegrate, I realized I had to kill her.
If I didn’t end her life, then she would end mine. And even if she didn’t manage to do that, she would certainly continue to cause havoc in this world she planned on building with her husband.
We were out of here. Like, the F out of here. And yet, could I actually leave this behind? Could I abandon this country to the plans of the Allens, knowing they would only continue to breed this kind of morally corrupt degeneracy?
No, I could not.
If not for any other reason than for Kane. I had to fight for him. I had to end his parents for him.
Kane was an impossibly blended tapestry of good and bad, but most of his bad could be directly linked back to his parents. He had wanted to do and be good all his life. He had wanted to protect his siblings. He had wanted to protect me.
It was his parents that twisted his intentions into evil deeds and horrible actions. It was their force in his life that ruined him.
I knew he wasn’t completely blameless. I knew he would be responsible for his actions in this world.
But right now, I wanted to blame someone.
And his parents deserved it.
They deserved my judgment.
Screw Matthias and his power play for the supreme authority in this country. He and his disgusting wife deserved death and so much worse.
“Kane died saving me,” I snarled at Linley, who was having a difficult time pulling herself together. “He threw himself into a horde of Feeders so I could get to safety, so Miller and I could get to safety.”
My words pulled her out of her pity party and her tears immediately dried up. “What did you say?”
I pulled myself up on my knees and looked down at her. “Kane died because of me.” What was once a point of shame and guilt for me transformed into something I could be proud of. I had not only earned the love from Kane Allen, a man I also loved and respected, but he’d given me the ultimate sacrifice as well. That was the definitive act of courage to me. And in a way, defiance against his abusive parents.
She shook her head and pulled herself up too. “You never deserved him!” She started to shout and scream. Her voice pitched higher than all the other voices. “You didn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as he! He should never have paid you any attention! And now you killed him! You killed my boy! My son! He’s dead because of you! And it should have been you that died! It’s you that deserves to be eaten by Feeders, not my son! Not my Kane! I hate you! Oh god, I hate you so much!” She shook violently from a few feet away and her face turned an alarming shade of purple. Rage seared through her body and as grating and harsh as her words were, I felt them like her claws when the scratched at my face. They had power and I knew she believed every single one of them.
“You were a terrible mother to him,” I interrupted her. “You abused him! You let your husband abuse him! You are manipulative and neglectful, cruel and despicable. He hated you,” I countered. “He hated you. But he loved me. And he fell in love with me because I am nothing like you.”
“No!” she gasped.
“Yes!” I screamed over the thunder and the raging Feeders at the back gate. “And you know that! Deep down you can’t even lie to yourself! You know he hated you! All of your children hate you! You’re an evil bitch and you deserve to burn in-”
She flung herself on me. Her hands scratched at my face with wild abandon. She screamed out as her nails dug into my face and throat and scalp. I tried to cover my head with my arms, but she managed to find holes and reach my skin through there.
I decided to ignore the pain and fight back. I pushed her off me, but she hardly moved. We wrestled around, pulling each other’s hair, scratching at each other and throwing the occasional punch. I tried to choke her again, but she dodged out of the way. She tried the same maneuver, but I rolled away and felt around for the gun.
Out of my peripheral, I could see two things. The black handgun Matthias had dropped that I believed had another shot in it and Hendrix and Matthias fighting.
Hendrix had reclaimed the knife and was trying to sink it into Matthias’s body, while Matthias grappled to get to the gun.
I saw that he was about three seconds from getting to it, so I launched myself toward it and clawed at the ground blindly. Mud and water splashed up in my face and destroyed my visibility.
Linley was right on top of me, her nails in my back and her teeth at my shoulder blade. She bit me! I screamed into the mud and got another mouthful of clay. I felt the skin break through my clothes, but the gun was more important.
I couldn’t seem to find it though. I picked my face up and tried to squint through dirt covering my face. The mud burned in my eyes and made it impossible to see.
“Linley!” someone shouted. Something landed with a thud near my waist.
Linley let out a triumphant shout and I heard the clicking of a safety.
Oh, no! She had a gun!
Time s
eemed to stop completely, every sound faded away and even the rain stopped falling. I sucked in what I was positive would be my last breath and waited for the sound of a gunshot.
It went off just like I knew it would.
I braced myself for the pain. I waited for the darkness or the light or whatever the next life looked like.
Instead of any of that, a scream wrenched through the rain and pounded at the back of my head. Linley tipped off me into the mud, her legs kicking at me wildly.
I didn’t think. I just acted. There was nothing left in my head, but pure survival instinct and desperation to live.
I rolled over and wiped the back of my hand over my eyes. I snatched the gun that had fallen between us, this time from her hands. I fumbled with it for only a second before it was cradled in my hand and I pulled the trigger.
I took in the scene.
My bullet had shot straight through her chest. She lay on her back in the mud, with blank eyes and a circumference of blood spreading out around her. Her gaze had been straight on me but now she was unseeing and vacant.
I killed her. Oh, my god! I actually killed her!
My hands started trembling and the gun dropped from my grasp. I kneeled in the mud with the rain drenching every part of me and all I could do was stare at this woman that I killed.
Or helped kill.
I realized someone else had shot her before me. That’s why she fell off me. That’s why she screamed. Blood seeped into the mud around her, turning it a hideous shade of dirty brown. Some of the blood sat on the surface, swirling together with the puddles of rainwater. The diluted blood looked like crimson oil and it spread out from Linley in a wide circle faster than I had ever seen blood leave a body before.
I looked up and met Page’s wide, terrified eyes. A gun hung limply in her small, shaking hands and her mouth gaped open.
Page.
Page.
“No!” someone screamed. A man. Matthias. “No!!!”
I heard Matthias move around behind us, scrambling to get to his already-dead wife. At that same moment, a Feeder splashed on the ground to my left. The horde had finally figured out a way over the wall. More Feeders lined the top of the wall, just one second from jumping into the courtyard.
I held Page’s frightened, guilty gaze and mouthed the one word she needed to hear more than anything else.
“Run.”
Chapter Four
I could say this for certain, I had never moved so fast in my entire life.
I grabbed Page’s hand and took off through the mud and downpour. I shouted something at Hendrix and Vaughan, but I couldn’t exactly make sense of my own thoughts or actions.
I didn’t even know where I was going to go. I had no plan except to get as far away from Matthias and the attacking horde as quickly as possible.
My life was over.
I was convinced of it.
The only reason I bothered to try to salvage the last few minutes of my existence was because of Page. She’d played a pivotal role in Linley’s death and I refused to let her face the consequences of our actions.
She’d done it for me.
She’d shot another person to save me.
And while she might not have killed Linley, her interference directly led to that outcome.
Oh, god. I couldn’t even imagine how I could keep her safe! How would I keep her away from Matthias’s reach and inevitable vengeance?
Parkers converged on us on all sides. Vaughan pointed to the front of the compound and that’s where I ran. I couldn’t mentally take in everyone around me, I just had to hope that our group was all here and accounted for.
Page and I were in the front of the group and officially weaponless. We had both lost our guns in the wake of our shock. I didn’t think either one of us actually believed we could truly end Linley.
Or that we were capable of murder.
Well, that I was capable of murder.
At the very most, Page was just an accessory. Which was a big freaking deal for an eight-year-old.
A Feeder landed right in front of us in the narrow space along the side of the building. I reared back and let out an embarrassing scream. A gun punctuated the air from behind me and the Feeder dropped dead immediately.
Someone pushed my back, so I jumped over the already decaying body and kept running. I heard a few more gunshots fire and a madman screaming at the top of his lungs from behind us.
We rounded the corner to the front courtyard and the clouds seemed to part and shine sunlight down on the getaway car, set up perfectly for us.
A part of my brain realized that Vaughan had probably done this while they held the compound overnight, but right now it looked like an act of God. I felt a surge of energy with the idea that we might actually make it out alive.
Maybe.
A man grunting and bodies slapping the ground pulled me away from my hope. I dared a look over my shoulder and saw Matthias’s men had caught up to us. Harrison was in the back of our group and a man almost twice his size had taken him down. Vaughan and Nelson immediately turned to help their younger brother while Hendrix pushed Page and me on.
Haley, Tyler, Miller and King had come to join us at the front of the group and we surged on toward the waiting Suburban.
What felt like hours passed by in seconds. Hendrix ripped open the back door and pushed me toward the seat. I grabbed Page under her arms and threw her onto the seat. Miller went next, followed by Tyler and King. Haley and I stood there for a second, unbelieving that we were back together after everything, especially the last twenty-four hours.
There was a time, not that long ago when I thought I would never be separated from Haley. Not for any reason except death. And now this. Not only were we split up last night, but ever since Kane kidnapped me, I haven’t seen much of my best friend.
And it was killing me.
I needed her now more than ever. I needed her to help me get over the trauma of killing someone. I needed her to help me nurse my broken heart from when Hendrix smashed it to pieces. And, I needed her to help me wade through the grief of losing Kane.
But most of all, I needed her to survive today. And that meant getting her in the car so we could get the hell out of here.
“I just killed a woman,” I threatened her. “Get your ass in the car or you’ll be next.”
She grinned at me. “I love you more than spray tans and pedicures.”
Our eyes grew watery at the same time and we crashed together in a short, but meaningful hug. Hendrix growled at us and we broke apart, both sniffling and wiping our eyes.
She jumped in the Suburban and I sighed in relief. I was just about to climb in behind her when the hit knocked me into the side of the car and smashed my face into the corner of the doorframe. I let out a scream of pain, but that didn’t stop the bodies from collapsing on top of me.
Searing pain bit through my shoulder. I screamed again in agony. A knife. It had to be a knife because the pain didn’t stop at one spot; it ripped over my shoulder blade and tried to push into the center of my back.
I suffocated on the pain. It swallowed me up and my vision went blank. My face was shoved back in the mud again and I couldn’t move with all the weight holding me down. I sputtered and tried to breathe, but there were men- as in multiple men- on top of me.
They fought viciously against each other; meanwhile, I caught the brunt of all their blows. I tried to curl my body into itself to get away from them while they battled above me, but my right arm had been rendered all but useless from the stab wound.
Eventually, they rolled to the side and I could finally suck in a deep breath. It hurt. So I decided never to breathe again.
Like ever.
This was too much pain. Even my lungs hurt. My organs shriveled in distress and protested the screaming synapses of agony pulsing through my body.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Matthias and Hendrix back to beating the crap out of each other. Only unlike a few minutes before
, Matthias had taken the lead this time. He was blind with grief and fury. He sat over Hendrix’s chest and punched his face so hard I thought for sure Hendrix would have brain damage.
Yet, everything inside of me resisted the idea of moving. Haley had stepped out of the car again and shouted things at me I didn’t understand. I heard her asking questions; her concern for my life was evident even though her words were a jumbled mess in my head. I really only had eyes for one person though.
And that was the man I still loved being beaten to death.
My right hand closed around the hilt of the knife Matthias used to stab me. It laid abandon just at my hip. My fingers barely closed around the handle, and when I finally got my muscles and bones to obey they protested adamantly. My stomach rolled as I pushed through the blinding pain and tears fell from my eyes. I didn’t want to cry, I would have preferred to suck it in, but there was so much pressure on my back and where my skin lay flayed open that I couldn’t control the waterworks.
I crawled to my knees and looked out at the courtyard. Vaughan and Harrison had been subdued and several men held them so they could beat the shit out of them too. Behind me, my loved ones were safe but for how long.
I pulled whatever was left of my willpower and strength into one last furious attack. I grasped the knife as tightly as I could, lunged forward and stabbed it into the side of Matthias’s neck.
Why I went for that exact spot, I couldn’t really say. Except that I didn’t trust that the knife was long enough to kill him by going in through his back and I only had his back to work with. The neck seemed the most vulnerable and logical place to work with.
The exact details of that moment were fuzzy. My knife sunk into his throat, but I couldn’t honestly say how it happened. I felt like I had no strength and yet I watched my hand plunge a blade through flesh.
Matthias’s head snapped back and hit me in the forehead. I sprawled backward and out of the way as he crashed down next to me. His hands were at his throat, clawing and tugging on the blade. I felt immobilized from the latest impact with my knife wound, but not more than Matthias.