Page 88 of Brutal Game

I shivered again, this time not from the cold.

I knocked, softly.

“Aviva, Asher, go away.” My father yelled through the door.

I began to turn away, when I heard my mother crying.

“Please, please don’t hurt them. We’ll give you anything…”

Something was wrong!

Ignoring my dad, I twisted the knob and pushed the door open?—

My parents were standing together near their bed, my father blocking my mom’s body. Two men in masks were pointing guns at them, just like in the action movies my twin, Asher, made me watch.

I thought I screamed. I thought it pierced the night. I’m not sure.

One of the gunmen turned. His teeth flashed through his mask in the dark room, and then the gun was on me, freezing me where I stood. The other was trained on mom.

My heart raced.

“No!” dad yelled, glancing back and forth between us, and even in the darkness I could see the helpless horror in his eyes.

And then Asher was at the door, too. He was in sweatpants and his Wayne Gretsky t-shirt. . I’d always teased him for that, because the hockey player was so old now, but he was adamant that Wayne was the coolest, and if I didn’t understand that, he felt sorry for me.

“Asher, run.” My mother said in a choked voice.

“Don’t you hurt my family,” Asher said.

The gun shifted again, this time pointed at him

Wayne wasn’t going to save my brother from a gun.

Bam.

Thud.

I jerked, looking at my brother. He still stood there, his face twisted in horror as he looked across the room. I twisted to see what he was staring at.

This time, I knew I screamed.

Dad lay on the floor, a dark pool spilling out from his head. His eyes were wide open in frozen fear.

Mom fell to her knees, sobbing.

One gun followed her. The other was still trained on my brother.

“What are you going to do, princess?” one of the masked men mocked. “Princess” sounded so ugly, so scary. “Watch your brother and mother die?”

There was a clicking sound—the safety, I knew from movies.

My body was moving before I even realized it. Thoughts flashed through my brain, startling as gunshots. I loved mom, but my twin was my whole world.

I dove in front of my brother, my twin, the most important person in my life, just as I heard a pop and my whole world exploded into pain.

There was a second pop. My mom screamed the scariest scream I’d ever heard.

And then everything went dark.

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