Page 139 of Offside Angel

I shove myself up to my hands and knees and crawl towards the driveway and the gate. I can see tire marks in the grass where Daniel must have swerved off of the drive so his headlights could illuminate our struggle in the grass. And a few feet from the tire marks, I see a long stick spilling out of a duffel bag.

A hockey stick.

My thoughts are still fuzzy, my body weak, but I want to help if I can.

I pick up the hockey stick and stand on shaky legs. I turn just in time to see Zane fall.

Dante stands over him and reaches for his waist. In the dim moonlight, there’s a flash of silver.

A knife.

I silently scream into the night as he bends down and plunges it into Zane’s torso.

I dig deep and run at my brother, finding energy reserves I didn’t know I had. I lift the hockey stick over my head, mouth open in a battle cry my brother can’t hear. One he doesn’t know is coming.

He looks up at me just as I swing the hockey stick at his head.

Something sickening cracks.

Dante curses as he spins sideways. I swing the stick again and again. Bloody gashes open up on his face and his neck. He throws his hands up to defend himself, and I realize they’re empty. The knife is gone.

It’s lying on the ground next to my husband. Covered in his blood.

I push the thought from my mind as I throw the stick to the side and lunge for the knife.

Dante starts to sit up, but he’s dazed and wounded. He isn’t moving fast enough to stop me as I whirl around and stab the knife into the side of his neck.

53

ZANE

I don’t even feel it.

I mean, I know what happened. I saw the blade disappear in my stomach. I watched Mira’s brother pull it out, twisting to cause as much damage as possible.

But I don’t feel a thing.

Adrenaline is pounding through me the same way it does before a big game. The stakes tonight are a little higher than gold and glory, though.

Mira comes out of nowhere with a hockey stick. She swings it again and again, taking Dante to the ground. As soon as he’s down, she lunges over me, and pain shoots up my spine.

I feel that.

She’s pushing on my wound, but the pain is there and gone in a second because Mira spins away from me just as fast, the knife in her hand.

I don’t see it, but I hear the squelch of the blade as it hits its mark—then the labored sounds of Dante’s wheezing.

“I am better than you, Dante,” Mira rasps, her voice more breath than sound. “I never would have turned my back on you. I never would have sided with Dad over you. And I never, ever would have treated me the way you did.”

Dante falls back, and I can finally see the gaping wound in his neck. Blood pulses out of it to the rate of his slowing heart, puddling around him on the ground. So much of it. So much blood. His face is growing pale as he blinks up at his sister—the last face he’ll ever see.

Good fucking riddance.

“You and Dad were cruel to me, but in the end, I win. In the end, I killed you both.” Mira spits down at him as his eyes droop closed.

Hands press against my stomach. I look through bleary eyes to see her. “Your face…” I reach out and touch her swollen cheek. I can’t even look at the bruises around her throat. They’re dark and angry now; they’ll be worse in the morning.

“He stabbed you. He stabbed—” Mira pulls her shirt off, leaving her in nothing but a sports bra, and presses it to my stomach. The thin material soaks up blood too fast, but there’s so much more than it can handle. “We need an ambulance.”

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