When the world around me started to turn black, I fought with everything within me to keep conscious. With my breath coming easier, I began to attempt to crawl away, to reach the knife that was just out of my grip. Once I had it in my hands, I staggered to my feet.
Staring down at Sigel, I eyed the mutilations on his body, which I’d inflicted with the borrowed knife—I’d had no idea such a ferocity was hidden within me. In a way, it frightened me more than consoled me. Although it was for those I loved most, I had transitioned far too easily into the outlaw realm.
When Sigel’s gaze flickered to mine, a cruel smile formed on my lips. I wasn’t quite finished with him yet. “Just so you know, Deacon Malloy is alive and well.”
A gurgling rattle of a laugh escaped Sigel’s bloodstained lips. “Expect me to believe that?” he rasped.
“You should. Why would I have any reason to lie? He never got into the house that day. He was off in the woods, chasing our puppy. He hid out at my house for two days. Then he had his own resurrection. He’s at the Raiders compound right now, handcuffed to a bed.” I narrowed my eyes at Sigel. “I wasn’t going to let him fuck with my revenge on you.”
Recognition slowly flashed across his face, and I knew then he believed me. And with sick vindication, I got to watch Sigel take his last breath with the revelations that he would never get his revenge on Deacon and that he had been taken down by a woman.
My knees gave way, and I sank down onto the bloody tile. A commotion above me startled a scream from me. In a cloud of dust and debris, Archer collapsed down beside me from the ceiling. Once he recovered, he reached out for me. “Are you okay?”
“I-I’m f-fine,” I stammered.
Archer glanced over my shoulder. “Fuck me. You actually did it.”
“Yeah, I did.” That statement caused a tremor to run through me. My abdomen clenched, and I turned and emptied the contents of my stomach onto the floor at Archer’s feet. “I’m sorry,” I moaned, when I saw what I had done.
“It’s okay.” He rose to his feet and then pulled me up.
On shaky legs, I surveyed the gap in the ceiling tile where Archer had come through. “Your idea really worked, huh?” To keep out of Sigel’s eye and suspicion, Archer had relied on his electrician father’s background. Through my bracelet, he had tracked my movements from above me in the school’s ceiling. I didn’t want to begin to know how he had broken into the mechanical closet, but he had found a way.
He grinned. “Yeah, it did. Fix it back for me, okay?” He then gripped me around the waist and hoisted me up. I slid the tile back into its place. We couldn’t leave it as it was. It wouldn’t corroborate with our story.
When he set me back down on my feet, he placed a chaste, tender kiss on my cheek. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, my emotions still overwrought from what had just happened. Then I realized that precious time was ticking. “Come on. We gotta get busy.”
He nodded. I handed him the bag, and he took out a clean pair of clothes—a janitor’s uniform, actually. I didn’t bother looking away as he stripped. I’d been through too much tonight to care about any false modesty. Instead, I took the knife, gritted my teeth, and then slashed cuts along my arms and legs. A wildfire of pain burned its way through my limbs as the metallic smell of my own blood entered my nose.
Once Archer was finished changing, he threw his old clothes back into my bag. What he planned to do with it, I didn’t know. When he was done, he looked at me, and regret instantly filled his eyes. “You have to,” I protested, knowing he was having second thoughts about the second part of our plan. The part where he had to make it appear like I had been attacked.
“Deacon will kill me when he finds out.”
I shook my head. “You have to do it.” My fingers gripped the sides of the sink. “Now, Archer!” I commanded. The words had barely left my lips when his fist connected with my cheek. Pain ricocheted through my face and head. Before I had a chance to prepare for the next blow, it felt like my lip was splitting apart.
Staggering back from the sink, I tried to get my bearings. Then I felt Archer’s hands on my waist and neck. I couldn’t help noticing that his fingers were trembling. “Jesus Christ, forgive me, Alex,” he said.
Then he went for the grand finale. A disabling move I had never heard of, but Archer’s martial-arts background had served him well. I needed to be unconscious to truly sell our story of Sigel’s attack, but Archer refused to knock me out. He had demanded to find an alternative. As the pressure he was applying above my clavicle increased, I began to feel light-headed. The harder he pressed, the more it caused the world to spin around me.
And then everything went black.
You know the old cliché that says that your life flashes before your eyes before you die? Well, in the last three days, I’d stared down the sins of my past twice. Once when I was knocked onto the forest floor from the impact of the blast that took out Case. Then the other when I was chained to a bed and forced to watch the woman I’d come to love more than life itself walk out of the room to an uncertain fate.
I don’t know how long I screamed behind that gag. I never fully grasped what a helpless feeling it is not to be heard. As I tried pushing myself up on the bed, the metal of the cuffs sliced into my wrists, sending blood trickling down my arms. Over and over again, I jerked my arms, hoping the rails would break, but the damn things might as well have been reinforced steel.