Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Nate doesn’t flinch at the weapon pointed at him. Doesn’t even look at the gun. His eyes stay fixed on Cal’s face, that terrible smile never wavering.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Shoot me. I’d love to see you try.”
“Nate, stop, please.” I step between them, my hands up, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I can feel it in my throat. “This isn’t you. Whatever’s happening right now, whatever voice is in your head, you have to fight it. You have to—”
“Move out of the way, Mia,” Cal says sharply, his eyes laser focused on Nate. “Get out of the line of fire.”
“No one’s firing anything!” I’m shouting now, my voice cracking. “Both of you, just stop, just wait—”
Nate’s smile falters, just for a second, but enough that I see a glimpse of something else underneath, confusion, maybe, or fear.
Yes, Nate, come back, fight it, you’re still in there, please—
Then it’s gone and that unnerving blankness is back, like his soul has been wiped clean.
“You know what I think, Mia?” Nate says, conversational, like we’re discussing celebrity news. “I think he came back tonight because he couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand knowing you were with me. Couldn’t stand that you chose me over him.” He takes a step forward. Cal’s finger tightens on the trigger in response. “I think he’s been waiting years for you to change your mind, and now he knows you never will, and it’s eating him alive.”
“That’s not—” Cal starts, his jaw going tight, his finger steady on the trigger.
Nate goes on. “I think he tells himself he’s here for the mission. For you. But really he just wanted to see it for himself. Wanted to look me in the eye and know that I’m the one who gets to touch you. The one who gets to taste you.” Another step. The barrel of Cal’s gun is a foot away from Vanguard’s head. “The one who gets to make you scream.”
“Last warning.” Cal’s voice has gone cold now, all the fear locked away somewhere deep. This is the operative talking, the killer, the man who’s put down threats before and will do it again. “Stand down or I fire.”
Nate stops.
The room holds its breath.
I can hear the blood rushing in my ears, can feel the robe clinging to my sweat-damp skin, can smell gunmetal and Cal’s cologne and something sharp and electric, like the air before a lightning strike.
“Nate,” I whisper. “Please.”
He looks at me.
For one impossible second, I think I’ve reached him. I think I see Nate somewhere behind those empty eyes.
Then he moves.
It happens too fast to track. One moment he’s standing still, the next he’s a blur of motion, his hand closing around Cal’s wrist, breaking his bones in half with a sickening snap before he even gets a chance to fire the gun, which falls to the carpet.
Cal screams in agony, but even then he doesn’t falter, doesn’t stop fighting back. He’s good, one of the best I’ve ever worked with, and he almost manages it. Almost gets his elbow into Nate’s throat, almost creates enough space to—
Nate’s other hand comes up.
It closes around the top of Cal’s head.
And twists.
The sound of his death imprints itself on me. It’s wet and dense and final, a muffled crunch that I feel in my own spine, in my own neck, in every part of me that understands exactly what just happened.
Cal’s body drops.
He falls like a puppet with cut strings, boneless and heavy, and I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t do anything except stand there with my hand pressed over my mouth while my brain tries to catch up with what my eyes just saw.
Cal.
His name echoes through me but no sound comes out.
No, not Cal.
Cal can’t be dead.
I’ve seen death before. I’ve caused death before, more times than I can count. But this…this is different. This is Cal, who ran along the Thames with me at five in the morning when we both couldn’t sleep between missions, Cal, who held my hair back when I got food poisoning in Marrakech. Cal, who told me he loved me and then stayed anyway when I couldn’t say it back.
Cal, who came back tonight with a pair of earrings because he wanted to make sure I could call for help.
And now he’s lying on the floor of my hotel room with his head at an angle that makes my stomach heave, his eyes empty, and Nate is standing over him with trembling hands, hands that killed my friend, staring down at the body like he doesn’t understand how it got there.
“What did I do?”
His voice sounds different. Smaller. The smile is gone and what’s left is a broken man waking up from a nightmare to find the nightmare was real.
But I have no pity for him and I can’t answer him. My throat has closed up, my tongue thick and useless, every word I’ve ever known scattered like leaves in a storm.