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The rest still had theirs aimed at Alex.
“Yes,” Alex answered, his voice cracking. “He’s everything I want. He promised we’d go to Italy someday. Have you ever been? I bet it’s beautiful.”
“No, I haven’t been,” Phoenix answered, keeping his hands out to show Alex he meant no harm. “He’s in bad shape, though, Alex. He’s hurt.”
Alex looked at me with a deep frown.
“He can’t take you to Italy like that,” Phoenix continued. “He needs a doctor. You don’t want him to die, do you?”
The boy shook his head before lifting his hands to his neck. Scratch. Scratch.
“Let us take him to the hospital, Alex.” The agent was within five feet of him now.
I wondered why he kept using his name. But then it occurred to me it might’ve been a way of reminding the guy who he really was. That his name wasn’t Ameinias. That he wasn’t really some kind of punisher, but rather a boy who needed help.
Alex’s gaze became distant, as if any kind of awareness fled his body.
“On his doorstep, Ameinias begged Narcissus to return his love.” Alex spoke as if he was in a trance. “Instead, Narcissus gave the youth a sword and told him to kill himself.” He reached for the bloody knife.
“Drop the knife!” Grayson shouted, coming closer.
“Stay back!” Phoenix threw out an arm as a warning to Grayson. Then, he focused on the boy. “Alex, drop the knife. You don’t want to kill him. I know you don’t.”
But Alex didn’t seem to have registered what was going on around him. He examined the knife in his hand, slowly turning it.
“With his final breath, Ameinias begged for Narcissus to be punished,” Alex continued in a lifeless tone that sent chills down my spine. “Narcissus traveled to a stream, and in his grief, he thrust a blade into his gut. As his blood mixed with the earth, beautiful white flowers grew in its place. Beautiful and tragic.”
I was barely conscious. The pain had faded as my body grew numb, and it was difficult to process everything going on around me. I looked at Grayson, wishing he wasn’t so far away. His brown-eyed gaze was locked on me, and I saw his determination, but also his grief.
“Alex,” Phoenix said.
“Tell me, Agent Stone.” He finally focused on Phoenix. “What do you think is worse? To have loved and lost or to have never loved at all?” Alex turned the knife in his hand again, the blade catching the light from the lantern. “I think both are cruel. Unfair. Yet, I think what’s worse is to love and not have that love returned.”
Phoenix reached for his gun, clearly seeing something in Alex’s gaze that sent off alarms in his head.
“Maybe…” Alex stopped toying with the knife. “Maybe the worst of all is to realize you’re not the hero in your own story. That you were the villain after all.”
Alex lifted the knife to his throat, and a gunshot pierced the air. I flinched at the sound, my ears ringing. I didn’t know which gun the shot had come from. Alex collapsed to his knees, his head lolling forward. Blood dripped around him.
Phoenix closed the gap between him and Alex, stooping down to the boy’s level. He cuffed him before calling for a medic. Blood soaked the jeans of Alex’s left leg. Nothing fatal, by the look of it. The agent had shot him to keep him from killing himself.
Grayson holstered his gun and ran toward me. I was fading in and out of consciousness, closing my eyes before snapping them open again. There was pressure at my wrists before the binds on them lifted. But I still couldn’t move my arms. They were massive weights. Same for my legs.
“You’re safe now, baby,” Grayson said, cupping my cheek. He slid his hands to my nape and held me, pressing his forehead to mine. Tears fell to my cheeks. His tears. “I love you with all my heart.”
He said he loved me.
It’d only taken me being kidnapped by a deranged killer for him to do so.
My stubborn, grumpy teddy bear.
“Love you, too,” I whispered. My throat was dry, and my voice sounded scratchy.
Grayson whimpered as he looked at the cuts all over me. Most of them were shallow, but some were probably deep enough to leave a few scars.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to get here,” he said, as more tears trickled from his eyes.
“You’re here now.”
