Page 78 of Beyond Hate

“What is that?” My eyes flicked to the book, which she carefully twisted in her hands.

“Your journal. You kept it so meticulously until the day you died. I wonder why Otto failed in this lifetime. It doesn’t matter…” She flipped the pages idly, glancing down at paper I recognized as the same kind I’d gotten the letter on. “Things have a way of working themselves out. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

He…

Of course Otto would find a way to get here, and the last thing I needed was him walking into a trap.

I didn’t want him dying for me.

And just like always… it was like thinking about him too hard had summoned him, because his voice came from the door at the back of the room.

“You know, Elizabeth… Nathaniel promised I could kill everyone who hurt me. He didn’t tell me there was a bonus before he died.” Otto had a gun out and pointed at the woman’s chest, and I wondered if I was the only one who could see theway his fingers were shaking slightly, the pulse of it traveling up his arm in a line of fury that made his eyes burn.

“Otto, I was wondering when you’d join us.” She sounded entirely too happy for someone who had a gun pointed at her head, but maybe it was because there was one pressed to mine too.

How much did sheknowabout the way Otto felt about me?

“Otto, don’t.” My voice was a little broken, and the feel of the gun biting into the back of my scalp made me shiver. “It’s okay. I…”

I could do this for him, right? If Renn realized he was aiming at the wrong person, would he try to hurt Otto instead? It wouldn’t be that hard for a trained officer to put two and two together if he tried.

I wasn’t a killer, but I was Otto’s perfect victim.

And judging by the look on Elizabeth’s face, she knew that too.

“Oh, Renn.” Elizabeth’s voice was so sweet. “I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. Look at the poor boy you’re pointing your gun at.” Maybe he didn’t realize it, but I could see the absolute malice in her eyes. “He looks just like your little brother, doesn’t he?”

Renn frowned. “That’s the point, isn’t it? You said he was… finding people who looked like him… and…” Just like I was afraid of, Renn’s eyes trailed between Otto and me, and his brows snapped together. My jacket wasn’t exactly covering up the bruises on my neck anymore, or the cut peeking up through the collar of my shirt.

I had more injuries than the ones he’d given me.

“It’s not him?”

“No, it was.” I tried to stop him even as he brought his eyes back to Elizabeth. “I did it, I—”

“I wonder how much pain he’s been through that he would try to save a psychopath like the man pointing a gun at me…”

“Don’t—” I started, but she kept going.

“I wonder if your brother went through the same.”

Renn’s hand on the back of my neck clenched, and when he hauled me up and Otto swung his gun around, I knew what was going to happen.

Renn’s hand coming around my waist wasn’t trying to hurt me. He was trying toprotectme. I felt it in the way his posture changed, in the way he was dragging me behind him even though the gun was still loosely pointed in my direction.

And I felt it in the way his body started trembling.

“Did you kill my brother?”

Otto’s eyes flicked between the gun still so close to me and Renn’s arm around my body, and he shrugged. The smirk on his face was all for show and I knew it, all bravado and coldness to draw that rage away from me and to himself. It was worse, because Otto couldn’t keep his gun on Renn—he had to train it between the two dangers in the room.

Renn only had one target now.

“Yes,” Otto answered. “Doesn’t London look just like him? It couldn’t be more perfect, really.”

I was going tokillhim when this was over with, because his eyes flicked to me for just a second and he shrugged again, almost helplessly, as I felt the tension leave Renn’s body… He finally had a target. He finally had someone to punish. Maybe he’d hesitated with me because I looked so much like his brother, but… shit, it was different with Otto.

He was going to punish him to rescueme, as if it could somehow rewrite the past and save the boy I’d seen dead in the photos.

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