can still walk out of here alive.”
Thomas got back to chuckling. “You think I give a shit about that?” He had no concern for the cops on either side of us, guns pointed at our heads. His attention was on the point officer who, like the others, had his gun pointed as us too.
“What do you give a shit about?” he asked, trying to negotiate, but even he had to see we were beyond a mutual ending here.
“If I can’t have her, no one can,” Thomas replied, making it clear the reason we were all here.
“I need you to put the gun down,” the cop repeated. “We can’t let you hurt her.”
Thomas didn’t comment, nor did he put the gun down. It was still held to the side of my head and the wait was excruciating. The wait of the unknown was a debilitating thing. Everything was a nightmare my mind didn’t want to process. And I was still disgusted that a tiny part of me didn’t want to witness Thomas’s death.
Suddenly, I felt Thomas let go of my arm. The gun was still pressed up against my head, but he had released his grip on my arm. I couldn’t help it, I turned to face him to try to get a hint as to what he was going to do, but his face was nothing but calm. He was giving nothing away and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do now. Run? Fall?
“It’s me or it’s no one,” he repeated in a voice clear and concise for all the room to hear. “That’s the only way this ends.” Tears started streaming down my face. “They can kill me, Fallon. Hell, they most likely will. But not before I take you with me. You were never meant to be with anyone else. It was always going to be you and me.”
Thomas cocked the gun in his hand, and I couldn’t stop the cry that escaped. “No!”
And then there was nothing but gunshots.
Chapter 24
Xander~
I dropped to my knees at the sound of gunfire.
This is not supposed to be real-life. This isn’t supposed to be what happens outside action movies. The guilt that I hadn’t believed Fallon at first was paralyzing. It’s what brought me to my knees. Anyone else might be rushing inside the house to save the woman they loved, but the guilt of not believing her at first had me weakened.
Unwilling to face a life without Fallon was what also had me on my knees on the street. When I walked out of the house, the officer had forced me to stand behind the patrol cars or face being handcuffed in one of the backseats. I had chosen to behave, all the while, I felt like my emotions were trying to crawl out from beneath my skin.
And, as if the guilt weren’t enough, everything that made me a man accused me of cowardice. How could I fucking leave her in there? How could I walk out alive to wait? It didn’t matter that there were people inside with her that were more qualified to protect her. It didn’t matter that they threatened to arrest me. It didn’t matter that I knew my presence might do more harm than good.
None of that mattered.
At the end of the day, I left her to deal with a horrible situation alone. Fuck the cops. Fallon was just a job to them. I’m the one who should have protected her better.
I’m the one who failed.
I just prayed to God that she was alive, so that I could make it up to her. I’ll spend the rest of my life trailing after her, begging for forgiveness, if that’s what I had to do.
As I was bargaining with God, one of the officers came walking out of the house and I didn’t care anymore. They could arrest me or fucking shoot me; I needed to get to Fallon.
“Sir!”
I ignored the officer who had escorted me out and raced towards the house. “Fallon!”
“Sir!” Now, it was the officer who was walking out of the house that was shouting at me. He had both his hands flat up against my chest, trying to stop me from entering the house.
“Fallon!”
“Sir, you need to-”
“Xander!”
The sound of her voice was all I needed to hear. I stopped fighting and dropped my head back as I thanked God that she was alive. When I opened my eyes and looked beyond the officer who was trying to hold me back, I