Page 68 of Lock Me Out

She walks past the archway and doesn’t notice me standing in the dark—at least until she hears me draw the gun from my waistband and click the safety off and point it at her. All at once, she turns around, her mouth hanging open, and the light coming from the kitchen illuminates her eyes as they widen in understanding.

“Don’t say a word,” I warn through gritted teeth. I barely recognize my voice. “I want you to turn around and get on your knees, hands behind your head. Do it,” I go on, aiming at her head.

“If I scream, they’ll come running,” she whispers.

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I have all these bullets. Do it.” Who am I? Oh, right. I’m a girl trying to save the men she loves.

She turns in a circle, lowering herself to her knees. “You’re going to regret this, you little slut. You’re going to be sorry.”

When she’s kneeling, her hands behind her head, I step up close behind her and touch the metal to her back. All I have to do is pull the trigger. That’s it. It’ll be so easy.

I can’t. I just can’t. How am I supposed to take a life?

“Don’t have the guts, do you?” she asks with snide laughter in her voice. “You only think you do.”

She’s right. I don’t have the guts to kill her.

But I do have the guts to pick up a lamp from a table close by and bring it down on top of her head.

It’s not so much the breaking of the lamp that’s loud. It’s the way her unconscious body hits the floor with a heavy thud that sets off rapid footsteps coming up the basement stairs.

“Cecilia?” a man asks. “What happened?”

I don’t think—I react, spinning in place and meeting him in the kitchen by the time he reaches the top of the stairs. All it takes is our eyes meeting from across the room for me to know who he is. Deborah looked a lot like her dad.

There’s a second that might as well be an eternity when we stare at each other. Time stops. There’s nobody but the two of us, locked in a staring contest.

Before he lunges.

And I fire. Like magic, a wound appears on his thigh, which begins oozing blood that soaks into his jeans.

“Shit!” he barks, stumbling backward, pressing a hand to the wound, not stopping until it’s too late. Until his eyes bulge even wider, his mouth falls open, and he reaches out to grab the doorframe to keep himself from tumbling backward down the stairs.

He’s too late.

The sound of him falling is loud enough to make me cringe and wince as he hits every step on the way down. When I work up the guts to go to the top of the stairs, I look down at where he landed and stare in sickened disbelief.

He’s lying on his stomach but looking up at me. His head is twisted in a way it shouldn’t be.

He broke his neck. He’s dead.

It’s like I split in half on the spot. One half of me is horrified, ice filling my veins, nausea twisting my stomach. He wouldn’t be dead if I hadn’t shot him. I am responsible for his death when I look at it that way.

The other half stares down in triumph. Grim satisfaction tugs at the corners of my mouth until I’m smirking down at the bastard who was beating Nix when I first looked through the basement window. I wouldn’t have shot him if he wasn’t doing this, if he hadn’t made a move like he wanted to hurt me. He got what he deserved.

When the other man—who I’m now guessing is George—rushes to him and stands over his body, I train the gun on him.

“Don’t move!” I shout. Again, I don’t recognize the voice coming from me, just like I don’t recognize the thrill of watching disbelief play over his face when he looks up at me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He’s almost laughing, like he doesn’t believe what he sees. “Making our job easier? Because you’re next. Don’t think you aren’t.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about when you say ‘our job,’” I reply, slowly walking down the stairs, watching his every move—every twitch of his jaw, every direction his eyes travel. “Because it looks like he’s dead, and the woman upstairs is unconscious. Maybe even worse—I hit her pretty hard.”

“Cecilia?” His voice has a note of desperation that only grows louder when he calls her name again.

“I told you. Back away,” I warn, and I have to force my hands to be steady as I reach the basement floor, stepping over the body lying at the foot of the stairs.

“Leni,” Colt grunts.

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