Page 94 of What I Should Have Known

Through the blurred muck another ATV roared into view, and a man I knew drifted his tires to a halt. Ford launched himself off the vehicle. “GO GET EMMA!” he shouted at Beau as he raced directly toward the womanI’d failed. Beau slammed his thumb against the throttle and disappeared back into the trees.

“KAT!” I screamed through the silt sliding down my throat. Kicking against the restraints holding me to the ground, I pointed a finger at Wyatt and Kat. Ford gave me a quick nod without faltering in his sprint toward her.

And two cartel members launched themselves at Ford, tackling him to the ground.

Wyatt grabbed the handlebars. In a flurry of mud, he zoomed off, leaving the rifle that had just shot Kat behind.

Chapter 30

BERNIE

My heart turned numb. It became a block of stone that no longer beat with the storm thundering down upon me.

No longer did I want this reality. If this was reality? My head pounded as I stopped clawing at the ground. I stopped fighting against the man holding my ankles.

She wasn’t here.

Wait, she?

No,he.

I’d failed Duncan.

I closed my eyes, wishing to be where I no longer fucking hurt those I cared the most about. Somewhere in my mind, my story ended differently. Where my mom would be better off without my impulsive immaturity. Raiden would receive all the attention he deserved, no longer masked by the shadow of someone as hollow as me if I wasn’t there.

Why hadn’t I been the one killed?Peace had been so close.

Dragging Duncan’s body around the corner, I tucked the gun into my shoulder and scanned our surroundings.

“Reyes,” Scottie whispered.

And there he was, perched up in a window of a building that should’ve been cleared before we arrived. That fucker killed him.

Incomprehensible shouting filled the world around me. Mud sloshed. Footsteps crashed around me. Mist clouded my vision, hiding Reyes and the body by my feet.

Hiding Duncan who—

A clammy hand wrapped around my wrists as weight pinned me to the ground. My eyes peeled open. Rain pouring down hid the anguished tears sliding along my cheeks as I locked onto a gaze above me holding a hollow soul. Reality and fiction, the past and present, were swirling in a cauldron of murky sludge.

Rain?

“Bernie!” Ford bellowed, sounding strained as if he had exerted himself.

I let out a shaky breath. Thunder pounded in my ears, drowning out the ringing as mud soaked against my back and hands wrapped around my throat.

“I don’t know— Is Matrix— Where’s Reyes?” I gasped, confusion swirling as quickly as the sight in front of me shifted from cement and dust to greenery and rain.

Rain? Why was there rain?

“Bernie, we’re home!” Ford grunted as the chokehold tightened around my neck. I sucked in desperate for air.

“You’re home! Reyes is already dead!” Ford roared again. “Fight, damn it! Fucking fight!”

My eyes snapped into focus.

Wet. Shards of grass poked beneath me as sharp as the needles of pain shooting through my lungs. Like tendrils of death, the branches from the trees around me shook, clawing to reach me as quickly as Death himself encroached.

“BERNIE!” Ford shouted once more, and a rush of adrenaline barreled through my veins.

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