Vial Things (Resurrectionist #1) - Leah Clifford Page 0,99

sure he’ll say something or lean in to kiss me, but he does neither, and instead gets to his feet.

“Easy,” I tell him but he seems to be holding his own.

He takes the ten steps to the carved out shelf holding the rusted bolt cutters. As soon as he turns around again, Talia’s stretching hard enough to make the chains holding her creak. Ploy offers the bolt cutters and she grabs them. I hear the sharp shing of the metal breaking apart. She blurs by, fluid motion. She lines up the bolt cutters on one of the padlocks holding me, her eyes darting to Ploy every couple seconds as if she’s waiting for him to attack her. Finally, I’m free. Relief wells tears in my eyes. “It’s over,” I whisper.

She takes my face in her hands. “Hey. Not yet.” Before I can ask, she breaks away, edging around Ploy to Jamison’s body.

Ploy comes to stand behind me. “She’s not going to cut him up is she?”

I shake my head, confused as Talia flips the body over. She reaches into Jamison’s waistband and pulls out the gun tucked there.

“Talia?” I ask as she raises it. The barrel is pointed just over my shoulder.

“All right, Ploy,” Talia says. “Let Allie move aside so she doesn’t get hurt.”

“What are you doing?” I demand. This wasn't part of the plan.

“Protecting us,” Talia says. "Now get out of the way, Allie."

It takes me a moment to realize she's serious. She’s not looking at Ploy, her eyes focused far beyond the wall behind him. She means to shoot him. Before she can pull the trigger I leap in front to block him. “Talia, don’t.”

Disappointment carves her mouth into a frown. “He was after us, too, Allie. He turned on us. He’ll do it again. We agreed on this.”

“No!” I yell. I press an arm against Ploy, willing him not to move. She won’t shoot with me in the way. At least, I think she won’t.

“We can’t trust him. We just needed him to get the bolt cutters.” She cocks the gun. “This has to happen.”

I turn to face Ploy, my arms around his neck, covering as much of him as I can. I don’t know how he feels about me anymore, but it doesn't matter. “We can trust you, right?” It comes out frantic. He doesn't deserve to die. Not like this. “I can trust you?”

In my head, my aunt’s voice is begging me to step aside, let it happen because Talia's right, it needs to be done. He’s a danger to us. To anyone like us. He knows too much about me. That’s my fault, though, not his. “He’s not like Jamison was.”

Ploy’s face is pure confusion. “You’re going to kill me?”

“Get out of the way, Allie,” Talia says again. She levels the gun on his head. “I’ll take care of this. He won’t come back. You don’t even have to watch.”

I ignore her, focusing on Ploy. “You said you wanted to have this life, save people." His hands are around my waist, the fingers clenching every few seconds. "We can do it together, even if you can’t bring them back, too. You can help me,” I say. “Do you still want that?”

“Allie!” Talia’s voice is sharp behind me.

I lock eyes with Ploy. “No, let him answer,” I say to her calmly. I watch as he swallows hard and I lick my lips, trying to find the right words. “If that’s what he wants,” I add. Behind me, I sense Talia getting restless. I’m surprised she’s given me this much time. If he answers wrong, he’s not walking out of this house. Worse, I’m not even sure what the right answer is.

There might not be one.

If he dies, I’m not going to curl up in a fetal position and beg death to take me too. This isn’t Romeo and Juliet, except for the body count, but I deserve him, damn it. He’s something I want for me.

Emotions war across his face. Each word strains out. "Allie, I...I don't even want it. The blood. Power. I don't want any of it anymore." He glances over my shoulder at Talia. "Does that get me shot or no?" he snaps.

My head cocks to the side to catch her in my peripheral vision. She's still holding the gun out, but there's hesitation in her eyes now. As I watch, her stance loosens, the gun lowering a few inches.

Ploy grips my shoulder and forces me two steps away from him. "Pull the trigger," he challenges Talia. "If that's what you need to do, then do it."

"No!" I start, but Ploy moves forward until the barrel digs against his dirty shirt, against the dried blood from Jamison’s bullet where it hit him in the chest.

"Don't push me," Talia grates out.

"Do it," he says. My breath catches, eyes darting between them. When there’s no movement from Talia, Ploy slowly nods. "Okay, then."

His back is to Talia as he moves toward me. I get a glimpse of her over his shoulder. Her mouth opens as if she wants to say something, but then she closes it again, and finally lowers the weapon. It's only then that I relax.

Ploy stops just in front of me and closes his eyes for a beat.

"You don't want any of this anymore?" I say when he stays silent. "Does that...Does that include me?"

He shuffles closer until his lips brush tentatively against my own. Before I can kiss him back he pulls away, his mouth twisted as if he's tasted something sour on mine. “How do we get past this?" he asks.

I’m not sure if there’s a way for us to start over. “We were both doing what we needed to survive.”

“What he had me do...” he says quietly and juts his chin toward the body beside us. “I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I should have stopped him.”

“You did,” I whisper.

“Not soon enough to save Brandon. Your aunt. Not soon enough to matter.” He raises his head until his eyes meet mine. The shame in them rips through me.

“It mattered to me,” Talia says quietly. “And it mattered to her.”

I press my lips together. I hate how much I want to tell him it wasn’t his fault, how much I want to believe that.

“Is that all this was?” he asks. “Survival? Or were we more than that? Are we more than that?”

“Ploy—”

“No,” he blurts. Frustration ripples across his face. “Don’t call me that.”

He leans forward then, his mouth pressing against mine. I remember how safe I used to feel knowing he was asleep a few yards away on the couch. The way he stopped me when I kissed him in that hunting cabin, because he wanted to make sure I was doing it for the right reasons. My hands come up, clutch his shoulder, the back of his neck. This time, it’s right.

When we part, he kisses my forehead once and then leans in to my ear. “My name,” he whispers. “It’s Christopher.”

Epilogue

Allie

Christopher. The name tumbles through my brain as he helps me up the stairs, his arm gently resting over my shoulders. He reached for my hand at first, but my wrists are raw and sore, the scar tissue knitting together. Every muscle aches as I climb, but we’re alive, the three of us. I clutch my bruised ribs.

“You gonna make it?” Ploy asks. Not Ploy, I think. Christopher. For some reason knowing his real name feels like flipping to a new page in a book.

A fresh start. “I’m good,” I tell him, managing a weak smile before I let myself lean against his shoulder. His lips press against the top of my head. I won’t pretend everything’s magically perfect between us. There’s trust to be gained and earned on both sides. But we’re going to try.

On the way out, we stop for Talia’s medical bag. He lets me go to snag it from where it leans against the couch in the living room and hands it to Talia, but is at my side a second later. My head throbs. The bodies will need to be dealt with and while I know Sarah would have had a source to call, I don’t. I’ll have to ask the others in the notebook. Learn to trust them. Lean on them. The thought doesn’t scare me the way it would have even yesterday.

Talia scoots around us as we head to the door, holds it open as we make our way through. It’s not until we cross the porch that she speaks. “We’re alive,” she whispers.

When I turn, her eyes are on the dark sky, the stars. Christopher’s arm tightens around me and for the first time in days I feel safe again.

I know this isn’t the end.

But for right now, this moment, it’s enough.