Page 35 of Real Shadows
I thought of feeding him some fairy tale, in hopes of calming him, but I couldn’t risk him going off on Xander. Plus, he was right. I had been an asshole. “Thomas, I’m sorry,” I told him truthfully. “I was so wrapped up in trying to get my life together, I hadn’t thought to reach out to you, or Bonnie, or Samuel, or…well, anyone, really.”
“Fuck that shit,” Xander barked. “Why the fuck have you been terrorizing her all these years?”
The gun pointed at Xander this entire time, Thomas looked over at him. “I wasn’t terrorizing her,” he denied. “I was…waiting until I wasn’t mad at her anymore before approaching her.”
With men, it really all comes down to the basics. “Well, you waited too long,” Xander snapped. “Fallon’s mine.”
I turned to face him. “Xander!” What in the hell was he doing trying to antagonize Thomas?
“She can’t belong to you if you’re dead, Xander Raynes,” Thomas pointed out.
I turned back towards Thomas. “Thomas, don’t…let’s calm down,” I urged. “Let’s just…calm down a bit.”
He cocked his head at my suggestion. “Does calming down a bit turn this outcome in my favor, Fallon?” he asked rhetorically. “You know, I knew you were going to hit the ground running when you turned eighteen. I could see your determination. You were shy and quiet, but you were strong. You had a quiet strength that wasn’t going to hold you down. It’s why I took your rabbit. It’s all I was going to have left of you when you left.”
“You took it when I was sixteen, though,” I pointed out. We had been housed in foster care together since I was thirteen, he could have taken it sooner.
“I hadn’t known I was going to need it until I overheard you on the phone with Karla telling her how you were going to beat feet the second you turned eighteen.” He sighed. “I needed to keep a piece of you.”
And he’s been taking pieces of me ever since.
Chapter 22
Thomas~
This is not how I imagined it happening. I hadn’t planned on having to murder anyone, but I’ll do it if I have to. I didn’t come this far and devote years of my life to Fallon all for her to end up with someone else.
I also wasn’t stupid, though. I knew she was trying to coax me into talking to try to buy some time until she could figure out what to do or talk me down.
Newsflash: There was no talking me down.
“Thomas, I’m sorry if I-”
I shook my head at her. “I don’t want to hear your apologies, Fallon,” I told her honestly. “Apologies don’t garner results. I’m no longer that seventeen-year-old boy who misses you.” I kept the gun pointed towards Xander, but I stepped towards Fallon. “I don’t think you fully understand what is going on here.”
Her composure slipped a bit. “You have a gun on someone,” she spat. “Of course, I understand what is going on here.”
God, she was so fucking beautiful. Even as kids, she just radiated beauty. It didn’t matter that she was dressed in hand-me-downs or that she never wore makeup; Fallon Reese was stunning.
“The day you left, I did what I should have always done, Fallon,” I began. “I put my intelligence to use.” I had always had a high level of smarts. It had been one of the things that had labeled me as weird. But no one had known just how smart I really was. “I spent years becoming one of the best IT techs around. Also, I ended up becoming one of the best hackers in the nation. Once I perfected my craft, I searched for you. And I always found you.”
She ran her hands through her soft, luscious locks. “But why? Why not just…approach me? Why play games, Thomas?”
Was she for real?
I couldn’t help the curl in my lip. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I snarled. “You left me without a backward glance, Fallon. Why would I think you’d meet up with me if I had asked?!”
“If you’re so smart, you have to know this is not going to work out the way you want,” Xander said, the man having no regard for the fact that I had a gun pointed at his face.
My eyes didn’t stray from Fallon’s as I said, “She ends up with me, or she ends up with no one.”
“Thomas, I…”
She trailed off, but I knew it was because she couldn’t bring herself to utter the words she knew would end Xander’s life. Fallon wasn’t going to go with me voluntarily. She probably believed herself in love with Xander. But that didn’t matter. While I’d like to have her love, I didn’t need it. I just neededher.
I stepped towards Xander and pressed the mouth of the gun against the side of his head. “Do I kill him, Fallon?” I asked. “Do I really leave here with you only over his dead body?”
Fallon finally cracked.
