Page 157 of Always Be an Us

Shit. I was hoping he didn't know that key detail. My chance of escaping seems more distant as time passes.

Gray-Eyes dismisses me, his head pivoting back to Rick.

"Here’s the thing that irritates me, Rick,’ he says. "I don't like when you make promises you can't keep. You guaranteed me you would eventually help us find the Pink Pearl. Yet you haven’t done so. And you also promised us a shipment of Rainbow Pearls, which you also haven’t fulfilled. I also don't like it when I don't get my shipments on time, because then our gem crushers can't do their jobs, and everything gets delayed."

Gem crushers?I frown.They're crushing the pearls?

Rick swallows, eyeing the gun before he speaks. "You shouldn't be doing that in the first place. That’s not what we got into this for."

"You think you can tell me what to do with my business," the man chuckles. "Right, well, I’ll go talk to the boss and tell him everything else that happened today. Tell him that I met the owner of the Pink Hotel and tell him about the deal he offered. And he might choose to go with it or get out of this Rainbow Pearl business altogether. But either way, Rick, your usefulness to us has expired."

And with that, I know GrayEyes is going to shoot. My entire body tenses up. He's going to kill Rick in cold blood, right now, in front of me.

Gray-Eyes considers Rick with a weak smile on his face. "Any last words?"

I have a split second, where I freeze in horror, where Rick’s head swings to me, his eyes wide in fear and a bit of an apology.

That doesn't move me.

What does move me though, is imagining Emma here, with us, imagining what she would do when she learns that the man she loved like a father is dead.

As much as she’s probably mad at Rick, I know she doesn't want him dead. She'll mourn him like she mourned her parents.

And that, above everything, prompts me into action.

I duck and find myself moving, weaving out of the way of an exploding bullet behind me.

Gray-Eyes turns the gun to me, but Rick grabs his wrist and jerks it away right as the gun goes off. Shots fire in the air, as I tackle Gray-Eyes, and all three of us go down.

At that moment, all hell breaks loose.

Gunshots ricochet all around us and in the absolute cacophony above me and I have no clue who’s shooting who. The white-haired man is beneath my body and his eyes are wide. I glance down to see that Rick somehow managed to grab hold of the gun, probably after the tackle, and it's now pointed into Gray-Eyes' abdomen. The spreading of blood on his shirt is proof that at least one bullet went right into him.

Damn it.

"You fucking asshole," Gray-Eyes says with an almost laughable amount of indignation.

I don't have time to process his death.

A hand on my shoulder drags me back to my knees.

"We need to get out of here," Rick says. The gunshots have stopped and I glance around at the bodies lining the floor, then back at his face.

I really want to punch him right now.

"There's more coming," he says. "We need to go."

Fuck.

I can punch him after we escape.

We burst out of the cabin and run for our lives. I hear a gunshot behind me and another close behind it. I don't stop. We tumble down the hill, rocks flying out from under our feet. Pain suddenly tears into my side, but I don’t stop moving despite it. All I think about is Amelia. Has enough time passed? Would she be in the car by now, hopefully, safe from all this chaos?

I don't know, but I can't risk leading these maniacs to her.

Thunder rumbles and I feel the first droplets of rain on my skin. I grab Rick's wrist and divert him from the straight path, cutting sideways.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Rick yells out but runs with me anyway.

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