Page 51 of The Infinite Light of Dust

Mendoza grabbed me by the shoulders, holding me back from trying to get my brother. “Go. Fucking go,” he said in my ear. “Martin or your brother will get killed if you don’t go.”

I froze at his warning, knowing he wouldn’t say that if he didn’t believe it. But as my feet carried me toward the door, I heard Kael groan in pain. Whipping my head around, I tried to keep up with what was playing out in front of me, and was suddenly back in Mendoza’s backyard, Phillips standing there with a gun in his shaking hands.

“Put it down,” Kael warned him, a trinkle of blood running down the side of his mouth. Phillips must have hit him with the weapon. “Put my gun down,” he said again, this time slowly.

“Fuck all of you. You’ve all been planning this. You wanted me to fuck up and get locked away so you can steal my wife and my baby. My whole life.” He began to sob.

I could see his mind splitting in front of my eyes. Paranoia and pain were driving this man into madness, and with each second that passed I could see the humanity leaving him. It was terrifying, and I couldn’t move.

Were we all going to die?

Just like that? I had never feared for my life until now, and it was shockingly not as terrifying as I always thought it would be. The last time Phillips did this, I was so shocked that I couldn’t even consider it. But now, as Phillips turned his gun on me and Kael shoved my brother away from him, I wondered what the news would say.

What my dad would feel.

If my mother would see our faces on the news and wish she would have come back.

I thought of Kael’s mother and sister. The two of them never seeing him again.

That drove me up, toward Phillips.

Kael screamed my name, and everything shifted. Phillips turned the gun on my brother, and I moved toward him. The bullet was fast but so was Mendoza, who dropped to the floor as my brother screamed.

Chapter Twenty-six

Karina

The room was completely red. Blood everywhere, coming from the corners of the hospital wall, dripping down the wall art and all over the beeping machines. I startled awake, cupping my mouth to keep from screaming. My brother wasn’t asleep but he didn’t move, just stared blankly at the wall behind me.

So much had changed in one day. Austin would be fine; the doctors stitched him up like a doll and the psychiatrists kept giving him something in his IV bag every few hours to calm him down. Elodie nearly went into labor from the stress of what had happened and was now waiting on her parents to arrive from France. And worst of all, Mendoza was in his third surgery within twenty-four hours. He was breathing, that much I knew, but we’d had no other news. I tried to call Gloria but her phone kept going to voicemail without ringing.

I looked at my brother, propped up and beyond distraught. If Mendoza died, my brother would not survive it.

“Do you need anything?” I asked him, my voice cracking. My throat burned. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a drink of water.

Austin shook his head but didn’t look at me. His eyes were bloodshot, and his entire face and all his visible skin was a blueish tone.

“Are you hungry?”

He ignored me.

“Austin—” I began, but his eyes snapped to mine, startling me.

“Stop, Kare. Please, for the love of god, just stop.”

His words hit me right in the stomach. I could feel how much he meant them, how he was refraining from saying something harsher.

“I’m sorry, I’m just trying to help,” I explained, my eyes prickling with tears.

He let out a sigh and looked back at the wall. “Can you go, please?”

I grabbed my purse and keys. My need to be there for him was so strong it was making me sick, but this wasn’t about me. He had been through hell and didn’t know what was going to happen to the person he loved the most. I left the room quietly and didn’t turn around as I heard my brother begin to sob loudly. The sound haunted me as I walked down the hall, hoping to see Kael, or Elodie, or anyone. I felt lost and useless, like somehow all of this was my fault. My brain was so scrambled that I couldn’t decipher if that was a rational thought or not, but as soon as I saw Gloria I realized I was right.

She rushed toward me, an unreadable look on her face. When she raised her hand I thought she was going to hug me, but her palm slapped my cheek, knocking me to the floor. I managed to get to my feet, holding my face in shock as she screamed at me. Black mascara lined her cheeks and her eyes were swollen nearly shut from crying.

“This is your fault! If you hadn’t shown up there and if your brother could have kept his dick in his pants, none of this would have happened! My husband, the father of my children’s life is ruined, all because of your family, again!” she shouted, her mouth twisting. “He’s never going to walk again and it’s all your family’s fault!” she screamed, her hand again flying toward me.

I couldn’t move. But before she hit me, someone grabbed her arm from behind. Kael. He gripped her arm and pulled her to turn her away from me. She kept cursing at me, each sentence worse than the last.

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