clattering to the floor. I let instinct take over. My hands moved up to break his hold, and then my knee rose in a striking motion as I pulled his head down. I heard a loud crack and felt Sam’s nose break.
“You cunt! I’m going to kill you.”
Just as Sam reached for me, another crack pierced the air. This one louder. Sam was simply there one moment, and then he wasn’t. My eyes tried to compute the body on the floor. The gurgling sound as he bled out, clutching his throat.
“Dammit, Shay. He was supposed to be my fall guy. I’m going to have to come up with another plan now.”
“L-l-let me go. Please.”
He gave me a smile that was a bit feral. “Now, why would I do that? The fun’s just beginning.”
A figure crashed through the door, taking Michael down in a tackle. It was a blur of limbs and cursing and it took me a moment to realize that the figure was Hunter. “Run, Shay!” he called. But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t leave him with my brother.
The knife clattered to the floor, and I dashed to pick it up, my head pounding with the movement. I tried to reach for my brother to pull him away from Hunter, but I was too late. A loud pop cut through the air, and Hunter crumpled, rolling to his back, blood blooming on his chest.
No. No. No. I fell to my knees. “Hunter. Talk to me.” I quickly pulled off my flannel shirt, keeping the knife tucked between Hunter’s body and mine.
His eyes fluttered. “Run.”
I pressed one hand against his wound and took hold of the knife with the other. I pointed the knife at Michael. “Get out of here. The police will be on their way.”
He leveled the gun at me. “No, big sister. It’s time for our game.”
50
Shay
He’d lost all semblance of reason. I knew Hunter wouldn’t have come charging in here without calling the sheriff’s department first. They had to be on their way. But they might not be fast enough, a little voice in my head whispered. Because if Parker was only minutes away, Hunter wouldn’t have come charging in here the way he had.
“Get up,” Michael ordered.
I shook my head frantically. “He’ll die if I don’t keep pressure on his wound.” I wouldn’t be the reason Hunter slipped from this Earth. Not even if my brother shot me, too.
He pointed the gun at Hunter’s head. “Get up, or I’ll put a bullet in his brain. Then no doctor will be able to save him. At least this way, he has a chance.”
I closed my eyes as my arms trembled. There were no good choices in this scenario. And nothing in the dozen or so self-defense classes I’d taken could help me now. I said a silent prayer that Hunter would keep breathing until help arrived. Then I slowly released the pressure on his wound. Blood soaked the shirt, and my palm was covered in the dark red substance.
Michael’s eyes seemed to glitter as he took in the sight. “Not sure that blood will ever come off your hands. Just like all the blood before it.”
Anger, swift and hot, flowed through me. Was everything he’d already taken from me not enough? My parents. My life as I’d known it. Any hope for a normal future. No, it wasn’t. Nothing would be enough for Michael. Not until I was completely destroyed. But what then? He would be totally and completely alone. Maybe that was what he’d wanted all along.
I stared at the man who was both monster and brother and let my anger show in my eyes and expression. I let it flow free and unchecked. “What now?”
Michael straightened. “Yes, tap into that rage. It feels good, doesn’t it? I never understood why you didn’t let yourself go there as a child. It’s so much more fun not to be encumbered by what the world sees as right and wrong.”
His words might as well have been made of ice as they poured over me. “I’m nothing like you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, sister dearest. We’re made up of the same DNA. You just haven’t activated that part of you that will change everything. Maybe this will be what does it.”
My stomach cramped. That was Michael’s plan? To turn me into him? I’d wondered time and time again how two people from the same parents, raised in the same household, could turn out so differently. It had often seemed incredibly unfair