Page 129 of Possession

“No!” Danny’s voice was in my ear as he pushed off me. His gun digging into my side.

“Stop!”

Whose voice was that?

I tried to push him back. He kept shouting for everyone to get back. His eyes were rolling in fright as he shoved the barrel deeper into my belly.

“You don’t have to do this, Danny.” My voice was little more than a sob.

“Just shut up. Shut up or I’ll kill you.” Danny’s voice was a whisper.

“Please.” My teeth chattered around the word. There were shouts from so many different people, but I couldn’t focus on anything but the man in front of me.

Danny pushed himself up, his hand shaking as he twisted back and forward. “There’s no way out. Your fucking fault.” His finger jerked on the trigger. “All you women. All your fault.”

The shot was deafening. When I looked up, Jack was over me with a gun smoking. Danny slumped over me and there was nothing but blood.

So much blood.

And screams.

Vi collapsed beside me, her huge eyes filled with tears with her hand stretched out to her brother.

God, oh God.

Jack tried to move Vi away from us, but she shook him away. I glanced up at his shattered eyes that went blank and hard right in front of me. He slipped me out from under Danny.

“Don’t touch her!” Blake’s roar made Jack hold me that much tighter.

Blake’s gaze tracked over my workshirt, his fear palpable.

“Not mine,” I whispered. “Not mine.”

I stumbled away from Jack and into Blake’s arms. He collapsed with me in a pile on the floor, his arms tightening around me. Then he cupped the back of my head, burying my face in the warmth of his chest. “Thank you, Jack.” The words echoed through him, vibrating in a way that seemed to imprint them against my skin. “Thank you for saving her when I couldn’t.”

“She’s important to me too, Blake.”

As if in a blur, Jack moved to Violet.

“You killed him.” Vi’s voice was little more than a whisper, sounding so very different than the woman I’d grown to call a friend. Her fingers curled over Danny’s limp hand.

“Stretch, I?—”

She pushed him back. “You killed him!”

“He had a gun on Grace.” He tried to stroke down a hand down her ever-present ponytail, but Vi elbowed him back, the sobs coming fast and furious as her gaze dropped to the floor where her brother’s body lay, the gun still in his other hand.

“No.No, dammit.”

Jack dragged her up and took each blow as Vi pummeled his chest until she finally sagged into his arms. “I’m so sorry.” He crushed her into his body.

I shut my eyes against the pain and death all around me and let out a shuddering breath as the sirens wailed just outside our door.

“It’s over,” Blake murmured against my hair. “You’re safe.”

Epilogue

Blake

---