Page 177 of Pretty Poisoned

"Okay."

He kisses me hard on the lips. "Close your eyes, sweetheart. Count to thirty."

I squeeze them closed, and once his body weight leaves me, through my sobs, I begin counting. "One…two…three…four…five…"

I hear Luca groan as gunfire rings out at close range. And I can't help it. I can't stop myself from opening my eyes and looking up.

And I do it just in time to see Declan dragging Luca onto the plane. Luca's eyes meet mine, and I feel momentary relief, knowing that, in this moment, at least, he's alive.

But he's shot. From the looks of it, more than once.

Whatever relief I feel vanishes when the second gun-wielding masked man jumps onto the aircraft and Bone Saw pulls the door shut behind him. Bullets pepper the side of the plane as it starts down the runway.

Oh my god…is he...

He's leaving me.

He fucking left me.

Theyfucking left me.

They said they would never.

I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't think. All I can do is feel pain. Overwhelming, all-consuming agony.

I'm dying.

I'm suffocatingas I watch the plane lift off, lights blinking in the distance, leaving me behind, lying in the dirt like I'm nothing.

And then I feel a knee digging into my spine.

"Don't fucking move!" the police officer shouts before a handcuff closes around my right hand and he pulls it behind my back.

"Just kill me," I sob.

"What'd you say?"

"I said just kill me! Just fucking kill me!"

"Nah, I'm not going to kill you," the guy says. "But I could. And no one would care."

He stands, kicking me in the stomach twice. Coughing and choking, I pull my knees into my chest.

"Walk," he demands, pulling me to my feet with a tight grip around my arm.

I do what he asks, somehow forcing my legs to move beneath me, even though I can't think about anything except how much it hurts.

And I don't mean the steel-toed boot I took to the gut.

I mean the aching, bottomless pit at the core of my being. In the place where my heart used to be.

"These two are both dead," another officer says. I look over and see him kneeling beside Rhett and Brady's lifeless bodies, face down in the dirt.

A strangled sound somewhere between a scream and a sob escapes me.

"Yeah? Good fucking riddance," the officer holding me says.

And then I panic, scanning the area for River and Hazel. But I don't see anyone else in the field—no one aside from police officers.

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