The Sinners of Saint Amos - Logan Fox Page 0,238

anymore?

But the neatly dug grave out back gives me a shred of hope. We’re too far away to see if it’s empty or not, but there’ll be plenty of time for that once we’ve gone through the house.

I hear a faint noise. Cass holds up a hand. We stop to listen, but hear nothing.

Could have been Zach and Apollo, going through the front.

But then I hear it again.

It’s faint, but it’s undeniably a gunshot. Me and Cass frown at each other, but we don’t dare say anything.

“Shooting range,” Cass murmurs.

I nod.

We keep moving.

Through an entertainment area. Down a hall. I see a shape, and tap Cass on the shoulder, pointing.

It resolves into Zachary, stalking down the other side of the passage like a cop in an action movie. We glance at each other, and then he nods and looks up.

Downstairs cleared.

Cass and I are closest, so we go up the stairs first. As soon as we turn to head down the hall, I hear a sound again.

A panicked sob. A choked breath. Fabric and clothes rustling urgently.

My heart’s in my fucking throat, but Cass puts up his hand like he knows all I want to do is bolt forward.

I guess he also recognized the voice making those sounds.

Trinity.

Chapter Forty-Two

Trinity

The pain is so intense, I can’t even scream. It’s as if the bullet knocked every atom of air from my lungs. I drag in a horrible groaning gasp and slide to the floor.

I reach up, but I can’t bear to touch the hole in my chest. Instead, my fingers shake in the air a few inches away.

Somehow, through the violent buzzing in my ears, I hear Nick chuckle.

Then I’m flying up, the pain intensifying as Nick twists the grip he has on the front of my blood-stained dress. “Hurts, don’t it?” he says. “Should be thanking me on your hands and fucking knees, Missy, ’cos now you won’t feel anything else.”

He drags me to the bed. Tosses me on the mattress. I let out a low wail as I hit the firm surface, as that jolt sends a stabbing agony through me.

Liar.

The bullet hit me just below my right shoulder, but my entire torso feels like it’s on fire. I can’t move that arm, and my body is as limp as a rag doll.

Nick climbs onto me, pushes the muzzle of the gun so hard into my temple that I’m facing away from him, to a window.

The muzzle bites into my flesh, the cold metal spreading through me. Then he rips my dress up to my hips allowing the brisk air to caress my bare skin.

A wave of dizziness hits me. It feels like I’m on a boat, and the waves are tossing me around. Then like I’m drowning. Except I think I am, because when I try to breathe, there’s shit in the way.

I cough. Retch.

Thick, warm liquid spills from my mouth.

The air smells like copper.

Am I dying? The pain is so immense, it’s impossible to comprehend. I’m aware that I’m writhing with it, that he’s fighting my limbs so he can wrench open my legs, but that’s all distant and possibly happening to someone else now.

Or to my dying body.

Which is fine, because I’m not really there anymore.

I’m floating to the window. Heading for the bright afternoon sun beckoning me through the glass.

Not scared of falling anymore.

Because I’m weightless now.

I can just float away.

Up into the clouds.

And then the pain is back, a spear through my chest. I suck in a ragged breath, and turn my head.

Nick has his hand on my chest. He’s leaning his weight on the bullet wound, grinning at me.

I reach up, numb fingers trying to pry his hand off my chest.

But then his body is between my legs, holding them open. And he’s looking down.

There’s still something cold touching my face, but it’s different now. I use my good hand, my left hand, to feel alongside my head.

It touches cool metal.

The gun.

Pain, but not in my chest anymore. Down there. Down where he’s looking.

Let him look at my cunt, I don’t care.

Because then he’s not looking up. He’s not seeing me fumble with the gun. Trying to pick it up.

He shifts, his hand digging harder into my torn flesh. I cry out, and he groans as if the sound gets him hard.

But I don’t care, because now I’m holding the gun.

Pointing it.

It shakes.

Oh God, how it shakes.

It weighs thirty million tons.

I pull the trigger.

Where I expect him to go flying backward, he instead collapses