Page 200 of The Grand Ruin: Lance & Scarlet-Part One

“You knew!” she spews. “He said it was foryou! So that I could be therefor you! Poor, poor, Nina. Always needing to be babied. You couldn’t ever go a day fending for yourself. Now look! What are you going to do now? You couldn’t do it yourself, could you? You had to weed out a hotshot billionaire to fund your dreams. Then you got yourself knocked up. Stupid girl.”

“You don’t know me,” Nina mutters, chin wobbling.

“Oh, but I do. You think you’re any different from me?”

I stare at the gun, at the one thing that would take me away from this world. I think of my dad. My mum. Her words. All the words she ever gave me, and yet I feel utterly hopeless standing here now.

“Mum, please put that away,” I hear Nina begging, the panic in her voice only confirming the feeling inside of me.

The energy in the room.

It’s changed.

My head snaps to the side when I see Joey inching closer out of the corner of my eye, the blade of a kitchen knife poised in his grasp.

I release a panicked breath, fighting for my next.

“I want my money!”

“Nina,” I whisper, my blood frozen in my veins.

Joey moves fast, Nina too, but she’s barely able to catch her mum’s arm before Joey reaches them both.

“Joey, no!” I snap.

They collide, the sound of the gun firing making my eyes pinch tight as I twist, shielding my body.

I hear the thud and turn. “No!” I scream.Nina. “God, no! Please, no!” I fall to my knees at her side, panic rising in my throat, making it impossible to breathe.

No.

No.

She shot her.

Nina.

No.

What do I do?

What… what do I do?

Everything quiets as I zone out, forcing the sounds, Joey, her mum, everything away.

She’s struggling for breath.

She can’t breathe.

Roll her.

The second I have her facing me, I scan her body.

There.

I bear down on her stomach, my hands covering her side where the blood’s seeping through her tank.

“Scar,” she croaks.

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