He just had to get Cadence out of the way first.
The bastard held her too tightly. Her breath had wheezed out before. She’d trembled.
You won’t kill her.
Cadence was the only thing that made life worth living for him.
“I kept her,” Anniston said, the words a sly purr. Taunting. Bastard, you will die. “She cried and screamed at first, for so long, until her voice broke. You heard her cries, though, didn’t you? I kept them because I liked to remember her.”
“Let Cadence go.” He felt cold. His knees had already buckled and he was only standing up because his left hand was braced against the rocks near him.
“You were here, when she was so desperate to get away. When she would beg to go home, you were in this town.”
Fuck, f**k, f**k!
He felt his mind begin to splinter. He wanted to kill the SOB more than he wanted his next breath.
But Cadence was there. Staring back at him with her beautiful face and her frightened eyes.
She knows what I want. Cadence always knew.
Her head inclined in the faintest of moves, as if she were giving him permission.
Permission to shoot her? No!
He’d sworn never to hurt Cadence. Cadence mattered. Cadence was life.
Cadence was love.
It was getting harder to hold the gun. If he didn’t take out James, what would happen to Cadence? “Let her…go…”
“One day she stopped her cries. She gave me that perfect silence. She started doing everything I wanted. She needed me. She liked the darkness, just as much as I did.”
Once upon a time, Maria had enjoyed the dark. She’d loved to sit outside and stare up at the stars. To watch the moon. It was why he’d given her that necklace on her eighteenth birthday.
Maria and her moon.
Why hadn’t he gone with her on that trip? Why?
I don’t need you to babysit me, Kyle. She’d tossed him the smile that always helped her get her way. I’m all grown up now, remember.
“I remember,” he rasped.
“I trusted Maria, I thought she was coming to understand what she meant to me.” James pulled his arm back even tighter around Cadence’s throat. Her hands flew up, her nails clawing into him. He didn’t let her go.
“I trusted her, but she ran.”
“You’re killing…her!”
Cadence had squeezed her eyes shut.
“I didn’t kill Maria!” James bellowed. There was truth in that bellow. Desperation. Insanity. Truth.
“She ran.” His voice was softer. “Fall…”
Cadence’s hands were trying to reach Anniston’s face. She was going for his eyes.
He saw the glint of gold in the light.
“Let her go!” Kyle yelled with all the strength he had.
“She chose—chose—but it should have been my decision! I’m the one in control!” James bellowed back. “I’m the one who decides life or death. Just like on that road. I decided. I took the glass. I cut her deeper. I made her bleed more. She begged. In the dark, she bled and begged, and I was in control.”
Cadence had his sister’s necklace. The half-moon. He could see it now. She shoved the sharp edge of the moon into James’s left eye.
He screamed and shoved her away.
Cadence fell.
It was the moment Kyle needed.
He didn’t feel the pain in his body any longer. Didn’t feel the cold. Didn’t feel anything but—
Rage.
He fired the gun. Once. Twice. Three times.
James’s body jerked like a puppet, and he kept screaming, screaming even as he fell.
Kyle rushed toward him, stumbling. His damn legs didn’t want to work right, but then he was over James. He sank to his knees before the man.
“Kyle?” Cadence’s voice. She was there, and he just wanted to wrap his arms around her and make sure she was alive and safe.
But first he needed to send Anniston to hell.
The bastard was still alive. Gasping for breath.
Cadence had gotten the light. She lifted it, making the beam fall on Anniston’s face.
He was smiling. Even with one eye a bloody mess and three bullets in his chest, he was smiling. “She’s a doctor. She has to help me.”
“Don’t even f**king look her way.” He grabbed the man’s chin. “You look at me.” This was the man who’d ripped his world apart. Who’d destroyed the lives of so many. “I’m going to be the last thing you see in this world.”
“C-can’t kill me…I know…way out…only…me…y-you kill me…you…kill her.”
Kyle had his gun to James’s head.
The captain was still smiling.
Get Cadence out. It was the one thought consuming his mind. Cadence had to get to safety. Cadence had to live.
He began to pull the gun away.
“Kyle, I can hear the falls from here.”
He realized the mad pounding in his ears wasn’t just his heartbeat. It was the thunder of the falls. Death Falls.
James wasn’t smiling anymore.
“We don’t…need you,” Kyle said.
James roared and jerked up. His hand flew out, grabbing for the gun even as his head slammed into Kyle’s.
His nose crunched as the bones broke, but Kyle almost welcomed the new surge of pain.
He squeezed the trigger, but no bullets came out.
James laughed. “Which…of us…is…stronger?”
Kyle yanked the knife from his waistband. He’d picked it up before leaving the dark chamber, too. Always have a backup weapon. “I am.” He shoved the knife into the bastard’s throat. Shoved it. Jerked it. Cut his throat wide open.
A gurgle was the last sound James made.
“Why don’t you try screaming, ass**le?”
James’s body jerked.
The blood flowed.
With his eyes open, staring at Kyle, James died.
Welcome to hell.
Cadence’s arms wrapped around him. “Kyle…”
He left his knife in James’s throat. The half-moon was embedded in the SOB’s eye, and the necklace’s golden chain gleamed in the dark.
Cadence pulled him to his feet. “Come on. We need to get you help.”
He wanted to go with her. He even tried to take a step.
But he couldn’t.
He fell right back to the ground, landing hard on his left wrist. It cracked. Broke.
“Kyle?”
The light wasn’t on her face, and he wished he could see her clearly. One more time.
He managed to lift his right hand. Managed to touch her cheek. “I…love you…”