Page 113 of Serpent King's Revenge

Silence filled the room, loud and heavy. I kept my arm straight, gun still pointed at Kenny, now slumped over, lifeless. My hand didn't shake.

It was done.

Nathan's mouth hung open, brown eyes wide. He looked from the man slumped on the table to me and back again. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head.

I let out a breath, lowered the gun, and set it on the polished wood with a soft clack. My hands were steady—too steady. I raised my eyes to meet Nathan's, saw something fierce burning in them.

"Couldn't stand one more word from him," I said, voice flat. "Not one."

Nathan just stared, his lips parted, but no sound came out. His dad, the great Kenny Zhou, done in by a single bullet. And by me, not him. He probably never imagined it going down this way.

Nathan's anger flashed for a second, his brow furrowed and his mouth set in a hard line. I braced myself, ready for a fight, ready for him to lash out at me for taking the shot he'd been dying to make.

But then, as if the anger was just smoke blown away by the wind, he stepped towards me.

Whispered my name. “Abby…”

His arms enveloped me in an embrace that knocked the breath from my lungs, not from force but from the sheer unexpected warmth of it. His face pressed into my hair, hiding from the world that had just turned on its head.

"Abby…I'm sorry." His voice muffled against me, vibrating through my skull. It was a murmur, filled with things unsaid, things we'd both lost in this twisted game.

I stood still, surprised, with my hands hanging at my sides. But then, feeling his body shaking with silent sobs, I lifted my arms and held him just as tight.

I clung to him, my hands gripping his blood-soaked shirt. The metallic tang of it filled my nostrils, mixed with the sweat and gunpowder that clung to us both. I felt the tremors that ran through him, the silent echo of his pain.

"Me too, Nathan," I whispered back, not sure what else there was to say.

We stood there, in the thick of what we'd done, holding each other together.

"Hey," I said, my voice steady. "It's gonna be okay." I pulled back just enough to see his face, the pain etched deep in the lines around his eyes. "But we’ve gotta get moving. We need to find Knuckles and Lily. We have to leave."

Nathan nodded, his jaw set tight. He let go of me, taking a step back, his eyes scanning the room like he was seeing it for the first time. "Yeah," he agreed, voice grim. "Let's grab them and get out of this mess."

I led the way, stepping over debris and shattered memories. The silence was heavy, broken only by our footsteps as we made our way through the once-grand halls of the empire that had fallen tonight.

We found Knuckles first, slumped against the wall by the door to the kill room—but alive. A small grin cracked on his face when he saw us, looking at us through his only eye not swollen shut. "You two look like hell warmed over," he joked.

“Speak for yourself,” Nathan said. “We need to get you to a damn hospital.”

“That would be great,” Knuckles winced. “Lily?”

“She’s…” I paused when I heard footsteps behind me, then I saw Lily standing in the dining room, staring at her father’s corpse. She looked up at the three of us—and she raced toward us, flinging her arms around Nathan.

"Ba…?" she asked, her voice small.

"Gone," Nathan said simply. "He won't hurt anyone ever again."

"Good," Lily whispered, gripping Nathan tighter.

I could hear sirens in the distance—but we would deal with that later. I gathered my broken family, moved them toward the door. We got Knuckles outside with Lily’s help, went to cross the threshold.

And I paused, holding onto Nathan, who had stopped dead in the doorway.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” he said. “This…fuck, it’s finally over.”

I shook my head. “Not quite yet,” I whispered. “We still need to wash the blood away.”

Chapter Fifty-Two: Nathan

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