Page 133 of Us Dark Few

She didn’t think. She barreled ahead with laser focus.

“Get off him!” she ferally screamed, lunging toward the Governor.

With a snap, Alexander Huxley clutched her throat in his bare hand. His cold blue eyes were filled with hostility as he squeezed his fingers and began crushing her windpipe. It felt like her throat was being molded to the size of a straw. Black encompassed the outer edges of her vision as she desperately heaved for an ounce of oxygen.

Nothing came.

She clawed the palm gripping her like a wild, trapped animal, but the fingers only tightened their chokehold. Her movements grew slower, sluggish. A gargle escaped her lips, eyes slowly rolling to the back of her head.

And Khalani knew that was the end.

No matter how hard she fought, death always returned for her.

A piercing and agonizing roar interrupted her bitter acceptance, and the deadly hand around her throat was ripped away. Khalani collapsed to the sand, choking and heaving as if her throat were filled with scorching sand. Saliva dripped from her mouth as gentle hands came around her body.

“I’ve got you. Just breathe,” Derek’s voice shook. Her blurred vision barely made him out, but Derek wasn’t staring at her.

Khalani twisted her head.

Time was utterly suspended as Takeshi stood over Alexander Huxley’s dead body. Quite literally dead because the Governor’s head was no longer attached to his torso.

Takeshi’s obsidian eyes weren’t fixed on the Governor, but on Khalani’s hunched-over frame as he raced over, panting heavily.

“Are you alright, Kanes?” He knelt beside her, pure brutality etched on his bloody face, the vehemence in his expression staggering.

“Yeah.” She coughed, attempting to move, but Takeshi’s strong arms entirely supported Khalani as she rose to wobbly feet.

“You ripped off his head,” Serene whispered in alarm, staring at Takeshi with wide eyes.

“Guys,” Adan voiced from afar.

Takeshi’s eyes roved over Khalani, jaw tightening over each and every injury. His mouth set in a hard line as he turned to Serene.

“And I’d do it again,” he declared without regret.

“You…you ripped off someone’s head,” Serene repeated incredulously.

“Guys!” Adan yelled. “You need to look at this.”

They paused at Adan’s shaken voice and walked over to where he was standing, staring at Alexander Huxley’s decapacitated body.Derek helped Winnie as they slowly walked closer. Brock stumbled over, still clutching his dislocated elbow in pain, and his mouth dropped open.

Jagged edges of metal and wires protruded from the Governor’s torn neck. Crackling electricity emanated from where his body still twitched. Khalani turned to where the Governor’s head lay on the ground.

His lifeless blue eyes stared straight through her, and if it weren’t for Takeshi holding her up, her trembling body would have collapsed to the ground

“He’s not human,” Derek breathed out in shock.

“He was a machine.” Adan’s face paled.

No one spoke as they stared at the Governor’s lifeless body. The impossible lay before them, shaking their very reality. Upending the foundations of their world. The man she hated with her entire being was never a real person, only a twisted mess of wires who controlled their entire lives.

Fiction and reality bled into one piece, and Khalani dug her nails into her palm with brutal force, as if to test whether she could still bleed, whether she was real too…

“This is crazy. This is…” Serene ran her hands through her frazzled hair. “This is insane. Did you know about this?” She swiveled to Takeshi, her fingers shaking.

“No,” Takeshi denied fervently. “If I did, I would’ve murdered him the first chance I got.” Takeshi spoke with such intensity and loathing that Khalani believed him.

“But what does this mean?”

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