Page 127 of Babalon

“You…”

Lucien lifts his hand and wiggles his fingers in a wave, the smug look in his eye enrages me.

“Nadia, this is the last time I’m going to say anything to you before I put you in handcuffs. Let’s go!” the officer belts, coming up behind me and grabbing my shoulder—turning me.

On instinct, I reach for and quickly snatch the gun out of his holster. It has been so long since I have held a gun—the weight comforting as I hold it up and aimed it at the snake.

“HEY!”

No clue who that was shouting, but fuck them. This… animal… cost me everything. Every ounce of my body is shaking except for my hand. Unlucky for the fucker, I’m a damn good shot and going to prison is the least of my worries.

“Where is he!?” I shout, tightening my finger on the trigger.

“Who?” Lucien replies.

“What are you a goddamn owl?”

“Watch your mouth,” he sneers.

“You going to come over here and shut it for me? god… damn.”

The way his grey eyes flare at that, introduces elation into my emotions. The wrath that rolls through me, the hatred, the disdain, for this miserable excuse of a human being. I promised him an unmarked grave with his name on it, and I will deliver it, one way or another.

Squeezing the trigger, the gun claps a loud thunder, sending the officers into a frenzy. Lucien howls at the pain as I shoot him through the dead center of his leg. A second shot echoed when I blow out the knee cap in his other leg. I may not be able to get him now, but that will be painful for many years, and when I come for him, good luck running.

“I’ll fucking kill you, Nadia!”

“No, you won’t. If you were going to, you would have done so a long time ago!” I scream back, the officers rushing to disarm me and drop me to the floor. Knocking the breath from my lungs as I look over at Lucien and watch him bleed across the concrete floor. The laugh that bubbles out of me is completely foreign, but oddly soothing.

“Get the hell off me you fucking clowns!”

Weight presses between my shoulders; my arms wrenched to my lower back as metal slaps around them. The audible rasp of cuffs adds to the intensity of the moment. A hand takes hold of each bicep before yanking me off the floor.

“Get her the hell out of here,” one spoke, another picking the discharged weapon off the floor and returns it to its holster as Nurse Cindy rushed in with her medical assistant to attend to Lucien’s injuries.

“Be easy with her. She’s carrying.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“What?” Lucien nearly barks, pushing the medical assistant out of the way to look over at me.

The way my face breaks into the darkest grin, seeing his surprise, and dare I say, anger?

“You’re pregnant?”

Not answering, there isn’t any resistance when the officers start dragging me away. Nurse Cindy and Lucien growing smaller the further I am walked away. His deep, frustrated yelling is the last thing I hear from him when the door slams shut behind me.

Shoved into the back of the squad car, I settled in, tilting my head back against the headrest trying to find a comfortable position. Whitlock secured me a day to square away my things, but I royally fucked that up by shooting Lucien. Let’s just add aggravated assault with a deadly weapon to my rap sheet. Hell, if the judge knows anything about him, maybe he will cut me some slack for almost killing him. Sadly, I’ve never been lucky in life and that isn’t about to change now.

My escorting officers drop into their respective seats and grumble amongst themselves. Ignoring my existence, which is fine, I’d like to disappear at this point. What good is there in being noticed?

“You realize how bad you fucked up in there?” the driver asks.

“What’s your name again?”

“Reyes.”

“I doubt this, but you kin to Kaleb Reyes?”

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