Page 125 of I Promise You
I feel like I was the one who was shot. I feel like I’m going to pass out again. The thought of Danny dead has me wanting to die, too.
“No!” I murmur, my voice shaking.
I cry harder and inhale sharply when I see them sway in her fingers, and she laughs again at my pain.
My Danny…he’s gone?
“Death can be killed, after all.” She stands back up, roaring with a giddy giggle. She throws the tags to the floor, far from me, in the opposite direction. I can only see the back of her as she meets up with the man again.
The dog tags sprawl out on the floor with a scraping noise.
“Why? Why would you kill him?!” I shout again, shaking my head as more gush of tears escapes me. I try to crawl toward Danny’s dog tags.
I need to take care of them. Hold them in my hands.
He can’t be gone. Please, God, no.
Then, a man pulls me back by my hair, and I shriek, kicking my legs. He drags me back into the passageway of the barn. I close my eyes right before the man lets go of me.
“A life for a life!” she yells, running toward me.
Then she stops and kicks me in my stomach.
I grunt in pain as my lungs feel obliterated to nothing.
I’m gasping for air, choking from the impact.
“Stop this! What the hell are you talking about?” I choke out. Danny doesn’t tell me anything. I’m clueless as to what the fuck she’s talking about. What has it got to do with me?
“That one thing we have in common, Ms. Alvarez. Don’t you remember?!”
“Remember what?! What has this got to do with me?”
What the fuck is she talking about?
What did we have in common?
Then it hits me. Our brothers. But still, what does that have to do with me?
“For a nurse, you’re fucking slow. He killed my only brother, you bitch.” She thuds away again, and the man burns holes into me with demonic eyes.
“And now we killed him. Everyone that Mr. Death has managed to piss off will be thrilled to know he’s dead. Especially his ex-girlfriend, Nora. She’s the one who told us about you. We paid her a little visit in the jail. What did you do to piss her off that much?” she mocks me, grinning at me wickedly while the man who stands on her side has his arms folded across his chest.
“I told you…men are trash.”
Fucking Nora. Of course.
“What do you mean, he killed him? You said your brother died in a car crash!”
“I lied. He died at the hands of your boyfriend. The night of Damon Hawk’s execution. Someone had to get the job done, and my brother was in charge of it.”
“His whole team will die alongside him, too. Everyone will pay if it’s the last thing we ever do.” She claps her hands once like a teacher who finished up at the end of the day.
“And now we have the one thing that Death loved, and that’s you.” She smirks, then moves her hands to her waist. “Don’t worry, you’ll join him soon.”
“Hang her,” the man orders, walking away from me.
“Don’t kill me! Please!” I beg, trying to crawl away, but a man behind me stops me. He pulls me up from the floor by my hair. My heels are gone, and I’m only in my red dress.
