Page 46 of Reignite

Till Death Do Us Part

“You know I can’t let you hurt her, Bennett. I’ve trained Angelina well. She’ll escape and evade while you and I are wrestling over the gun.”

I would?

No. Fucking. Way.

I wasn’t leaving Gray here to get shot and killed.

“No, she won’t, will you girly? She thinks she’s devoted to you, that she loves you. She’s already making plans in her head how she’s going to take care of you as you recover, and she might for a month or two. Then she’ll give up on you like everyone else in your life has.”

That was far from right. In fact, that was crazy talk. Literally. Foster was seriously mentally ill. Was that what he’d decided happened to him? Because, that wasn’t the way Gray told it. He’d been there for Foster for a long time.

Someone important gave up on him to make him this bitter and angry.

“Jesus Christ, man. None of us gave up on you. You’re the one who quit living.”

“You call this living? I can’t walk. I can't fuck a beautiful woman. Christ, I can’t even jack off with my permanently limp dick. This isn’t living. This is hell.” Foster’s voice was bordering on crazytown.

This whole thing wasn’t about Gray and me at all. It was about Serena.

Gray wouldn’t talk about her. He had a mad on about even bringing her up. Had she been by Foster’s side in the hospital and then disappeared on him?

I ducked under Gray’s arm and stepped beside him. “Foster, stop. Hurting us isn’t going to bring Serena back to you.”

He immediately pointed the gun at me. “You shut the fuck up, you fat whore. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Gray tried to push me behind him again. I took his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze, asking him to trust me. He shook his head, but didn’t shove me aside.

I looked back at Foster. “I do know. You loved her.”

“Shut. Up.”

“She betrayed that love, even after you sacrificed your life for her.”

“She didn’t betray me. Baker did. If he hadn’t shot me—”

I was about to take a huge risk and Gray was going to kill me. If we lived through the next several minutes. I stepped toward Foster, letting Gray’s hand go. “Angel, don’t.”

Dear Baby Jesus, please let this work.

I knelt at Fosters legs and put my hands on his knees, hoping against hope that he would respond to my submissiveness. “I get it. I thought I loved someone once who betrayed me too.” Foster didn’t respond so I kept on. “That wasn’t true love, and I had to learn how to get over it, so I could get to the real deal.”

“You think he loves you? Baker isn’t capable.” His gun lowered by half an inch.

“I do love her, Bennett. She is everything to me.” Foster looked between Gray and I and a dozen thoughts, ideas, and emotion flashed through his eyes.

“Nothing you say or do can make me question that. I am his and he is mine. If you ever want that for yourself, you need to grow up. Love and life are not always easy. A lot of times it doesn’t work out the way we want it to. Don’t be such a macho macho guy that you can’t own up to having feelings. Have them. Work through them and move on.” Like every other person in the world had to do at some point. Even me.

I couldn’t tell if anything I was saying or doing was getting through, except for the fact that he lowered the gun to the wheelchair arm rest.

“I can do something, all right.” I felt the muscles in Foster’s legs under my hands tense and slowly, he rose up to standing. “I’ve been working toward this moment for years. No one ever thought I would stand again, much less walk.”

“That’s great. See, you’re moving on already.”

“No. I will move on though. If I can’t get my revenge by crippling Baker so he can experience the depths of misery he’s given to me.” Foster’s voice grew dark and he raised the gun. “I’ll do the next best thing and take away the thing that keeps him going. You.”

In less than a second, I had a gun pointed at my head and then I was being pushed down to the ground and rolled across the floor.

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