Page 111 of Mine

He sends three warning bullets into the ceiling, shattering a skylight.

“Stop!” Sabine screams. “Just stop—everyone stop!”

I freeze in place, my heart roaring.

She turns to Carlos. “Take me. Just do this already.” She looks at Valerie, the mess of a woman. “Give him his wife and let them go. Just let them go ...”

Sabine’s voice whispers in my ear as if she’s standing right next to me.

“I didn’t even try to protect the only thing in my life that I really loved and loved me back. I just stood there. A useless little girl who didn’t stand up and be brave when I needed to.”

No. No, no, no, no.

Sabine is going to offer herself as a sacrifice.

“No!” I yell, my voice cracking. “Sabine, no, you don’t have to do this, you?—”

“You are a liar, Astor!” she screams belligerently, the veins bulging in her neck and forehead. “Everything was a lie! This whole time, you planned to give me back to Carlos!” She bursts into tears. “Just take me, Carlos! Get this done. Give Astor back his wife and just take me!”

Tears fill my eyes, the torment of seeing Sabine’s pain too overwhelming.

A sinister grin splits Carlos’s face. He drops his gun from Valerie’s waist and shoves her forward. She falls to her knees, sobbing like a child.

Then Carlos grabs Sabine from Prishna, pulls Sabine to him, and puts a bullet between Prishna’s eyes. Her head snaps back, her long braids flying in the air as her body locks up like a plank and drops to the floor.

Valerie screams, curls into a fetal position, and covers her ears.

Cillian appears in the shadows of the doorway, his gun drawn.

“Stand down!” I scream, knowing Carlos will do to Sabine exactly what he just did to Prishna if Cillian threatens him.

Valerie begins clawing her way across the concrete, her hair covering her face, her weak, shattered voice saying my name over and over and over. I want to scream at her to shut up.

Carlos begins dragging Sabine backward toward the helicopter. There are no tears or fear now. She simply lifts her chin, as if accepting her fate, and mouths:

I love you anyway.

“Stop!” I press the barrel to my temple. “Let her go and I will kill myself, right here.”

When Cillian moves, I scream at him to remain where he is.

Carlos stops, his brow arching.

“It’s what you’ve always wanted, right?” My voice is shaking. “It’s what this whole thing is about. You want me to suffer, to die, that’s the bottom line. It’s not about Sabine; it’s about me. I trade my life for hers.”

The realization hits me hard. I will die for Sabine, and I would do it over, and over, and over again.

Carlos’s chest begins to rise and fall with excitement. He likes this new plot twist. It’s exactly what he wants.

“Release her,” I say, my voice booming over the rain, “and the moment my man takes her,” I jerk my chin to Cillian, “I’ll pull the trigger. You’ll get to watch me die right here.”

From the floor in front of me, Valerie looks up and reaches a skinny hand at me. “No, no, no, no, no, no.”

“Deal.”

Sabine is released.

Everything goes deathly silent.

---