Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 102280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
“One sound and I pull the trigger. Understand?”
Vivienne nodded slightly. Her heart hammered so hard she thought Winston might hear it.
Brooks’s voice carried up through the tower. “Winston! I’m here. Let her go.”
“Come up, Detective. Alone.”
More footsteps. Slower now. Methodical. Brooks climbing toward them.
Vivienne closed her eyes, reaching for her abilities despite the missing pendant. The spirits responded weakly, their voices like distant wind. She needed them stronger. Needed Mathilde.
Mathilde, she thought desperately. Grandmother. Please.
The temperature in the lamp room dropped five degrees. Frost formed on the windows despite the rain. Winston’s breath misted in front of his face.
“What the hell—”
Brooks appeared in the doorway, weapon drawn. His eyes found Vivienne first, cataloging her injuries with a single glance. Then they shifted to Winston, cold and calculating.
“Let her go,” Brooks said. His voice was steady, but Vivienne could see the tension in his shoulders, the white-knuckled grip on his gun. “It’s over, Winston. The FBI has everything. Your family’s in custody. You can’t win this.”
“I can take one more Hawthorne woman with me.” Winston’s finger tightened on the trigger. “That’s worth something.”
The frost on the windows thickened. Vivienne felt Mathilde’s presence growing stronger, drawn by her desperation and Brooks’s fear. Other spirits gathered too—Lily, Karl Kelly, all the victims whose lives the Aldriches had stolen.
“You shoot her, you lose any leverage you have,” Brooks said. His eyes flicked to Vivienne, and in that brief glance she saw everything he wasn’t saying. Trust me. Hold on. I’ve got you.
Something shifted in the air between them. That connection—the one that had been growing since the day he walked into The Mystic Cup, the pull she’d felt when she first saw him—suddenly snapped into focus, becoming something tangible. Her grandmother Emmeline’s journal had said he would be her anchor, that the shop had been preparing for his arrival since before either was born. And now Vivienne understood what that meant.
She could sense the pattern of his thoughts like ripples in water, could feel the sharp edges of his fear for her underneath the calm exterior, could taste the metallic determination flooding his system as he calculated angles and timing. It wasn’t reading his mind exactly—more like feeling the shape of his intentions, the emotional architecture of his plan.
And somehow, impossibly, she knew he could feel hers too. The connection ran both ways now, a bridge built from weeks of learning to trust each other’s methods, of him opening himself to things he’d never believed in, of her learning to ground her visions in the practical reality he lived in. Two very different ways of seeing the world, somehow aligned in this moment.
When I drop, shoot.
Brooks’s eyes widened slightly. He’d heard her. Actually heard her thoughts.
Vivienne gathered every ounce of energy she had left, calling to the spirits one more time. “Winston’s going to kill us both anyway,” she said aloud. “At least let me die on my feet, not on my knees.”
“Nice try.” But Winston’s attention wavered for just a second, distracted by the temperature drop and the growing supernatural pressure in the room.
It was enough.
Vivienne threw herself sideways, away from the gun. Winston’s shot went wide, shattering a window. Brooks fired twice—one shot taking Winston in the shoulder, spinning him around. The second went into the wall as Winston stumbled.
The gun clattered from Winston’s hand. Brooks kicked it aside, already moving to secure him. Footsteps thundered up the stairs—Sullivan and FBI agents pouring into the lamp room.
Vivienne stayed on the floor, her bound hands making it impossible to catch herself. Brooks appeared beside her, cutting through the zip ties with a knife from his ankle holster.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “You’re safe.”
She looked up at him, this skeptic who’d just trusted a thought she’d sent across the space between them. “You heard me. In your mind.”
“I heard you.” His hands were gentle as he helped her sit up, checking her injuries. “Or felt you. I don’t know how to describe it. But I knew exactly what you needed me to do.”
“Right now I need my pendant.” Vivienne’s voice shook despite her best efforts. The adrenaline was fading, leaving her shaky and cold.
Brooks found the broken chain, carefully gathering the silver stone and placing it in her palm. The moment it touched her skin, warmth flooded through her. The spirits’ voices grew clear again.
Well done, Lily whispered. Rest now. You’ve finished what I started.
Agent Porter arrived with more FBI agents, securing Winston and reading him his rights. Paramedics appeared, someone draping a blanket around Vivienne’s shoulders. Brooks stayed beside her, one hand on her back, steady and grounding.
“Ms. Hawthorne, are you injured beyond what we can see?” Porter asked.
“Just bruises and the cut on my lip.” Vivienne touched the tender spot gingerly. “I’ll be fine.”
They helped her down the spiral stairs, Brooks supporting her weight as they descended. Out into the rain, where police lights strobed blue and red against the lighthouse’s white walls.