Page 128 of Science Project

All this time, he’d let Mom run things. He’d let Mom hurt me and the ones I cared about.

Dad’s head bounced off the hardwood floor, splitting open and staining it in blood. When I knew he was dead, I shuffled to my feet and scanned the room for Imani, who sat in a corner, covering her head.

“Get out of here, Imani,” I shouted, shooting a bullet through the ceiling. “I’ll take care of this.”

To my surprise, all the guards looked at me. I had never commanded such attention from them before, but their leaders were gone. They were chickens with their heads cut off, idiots who didn’t know who else to kill or who to obey.

“Now, Imani,” I growled when she hadn’t moved.

Imani picked up a gun, held it tightly to her chest, then dragged her mother’s beaten body across the hardwood floor and toward the front door. Her father crawled out behind her, a bullet hole through his shoulder and blood everywhere.

“Things are going to fucking change around here,” I growled to the guards when the door slammed shut. “I’m your new boss. And if you have a problem with that, then you can suffer the same fate as my mother and my father, who lie in blood at your feet.”

“You’re not going to do shit,” Kingston, one of the guards, shouted. “Get the fuck out of?—”

When I lifted my gun and shot him in the head, all hell broke out in the house. I ducked behind a couch as they unloaded bullets into it in an attempt to kill me. One shot right through the cushions and caught the side of my arm.

I winced and picked up an extra gun off Mom’s corpse. After checking to make sure it was loaded, I peered into a mirror that had fallen and broken on the floor, spotting three to my right behind the couch and two to my left.

As they reloaded, I shot two of them in the foot. And when they fell to clutch their wounds, I shot them in the heads. Then I killed two more of them, leaving only Randall left—the seven-foot-tall monster of a gangster.

He barreled at me without a gun in sight, wrapped his hand around my throat, and hurled me across the room. I landed with a thud against the wall as a five-by-nine-foot piece of art fell onto my head.

Stars danced in my vision, but I had to finish this to protect Nicole.

Before I could stop him, Randall picked me up and pinned me against a wall with his forearm pressed against my throat, cutting off my airway. I lifted the gun in a shaky hand, pressed it against his gut, and pulled the trigger. Except no bullets came out.

I was out of ammo.

After cursing to myself, I dropped the gun and grasped on to Randall’s forearm, desperately trying to peel it away. But he was too strong. I scanned the room for anything I could reach and spotted Imani standing feet away.

My eyes widened, and I shook my head.

What the fuck is she doing here?!

Imani lifted her gun and shot Randall in his head. Blood splattered everywhere. Flesh flew in every which direction. Randall stumbled back, and then his body smacked against the ground, a puddle of blood forming underneath him.

I doubled over, spitting and choking on air.

A few moments later, the front door burst open. Imani quickly grabbed a loaded gun from one of the corpses and aimed it at the doorway, waiting for someone to walk into the room from the foyer. Poison hurried through the doorway and stopped when they saw us.

“Akio!” someone shouted from behind them.

My heavy gaze lifted to Nicole, whose brow was furrowed. She ran over to me and dropped to her knees by my side, grasping my head and pulling it to her chest. She sobbed and hugged me tightly.

“I’ve been trying to call you all night,” she cried. “Are you hurt?”

“A little,” I said, glancing at my mother’s corpse and pushing some hair out of Nicole’s face. “But it was all worth it. You’re safe now. Nobody will ever hurt us again. I will make sure of it …” Even if it killed me.

CHAPTER

EIGHTY-THREE

NICOLE

I looked over the edge of the Overlook, my hands gripping the armpits of a corpse. The moonlight cast an eerie glow on the crashing waves below, and the salty sea breeze tugged at my hair that I had thrown into a messy bun hours ago.

While holding the corpse’s legs, Akio scanned the dark street around us, then nodded at me to continue down the rocks so we could toss another body into the Atlantic Ocean. Redwood had long been plagued by the corrupt police force and Akio’s crime family, and we wanted to clean up the mess.

---