Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Why didn’t you bring him here when you evacuated everyone else?”
There is a long, sad beat before he says, “As I say. Not everything went as planned.” Then he straightens his shoulders and says, “But you’re here. And that is all that matters. You are the one who will carry on the legacy. You are the one who will restore the power of the van den Berg name. It’s always been you, Alec.”
My stomach lurches. I am the one. I am the one he believes to have been made in his image. I am the one to whom he has always wanted to offer his throne. I am, indeed, the one to whom all is granted and to whom all is forgiven.
I am special. In his eyes. Because his belief is that I am him.
The only thing that can kill Alec van den Berg is Alec van den Berg.
“Yeah,” I say, turning to walk slowly from the stage. This time placing myself in front of Danny and between him and the gun pointed his way.
“Alec,” my father says, “enough. Eich, man, stop being so dramatic.”
It is barely worth noting the absurdity of that statement.
I approach the laaitie I don’t know… and place the barrel of his rifle in my mouth.
“Alec!” my once-and-again father yells out. “Stop this nonsense! Christine and Danny are free to go! Let them walk away so that you and I can—”
I reach to place my thumb against the forefinger of the laaitie whose hand is on the trigger.
“Alec, stop!”
I am not thinking clearly at the moment. I know this. But I don’t want to be. I’ve done too much, hurt too many, and left a moraine of carnage in my wake for too long.
This ends now.
“Alec!” Christine calls.
“Alec, fucking stop, bro!” Danny shouts. “Christine and I will walk. We’ll go. It’s fine. Just stop. This is fucking insane!”
I pull my mouth back, still keeping my hand on the laaitie’s, and turn my neck to face Danny. “You’re right, bru. It is. All of it. It’s all fucking insane. It has been ever thus. And it will continue to be… unless I stop it.”
And it is at that point…
That I ram the butt of the rifle back into the chest of its would-be gunman, wrench the weapon from his hand, and turn it around, pointing it at directly at the defender from the mountain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
As Alec grabs the rifle and spins it around, I likewise go for the kid Liam’s gun while his attention is drawn away. But Liam is twitchy and faster than I anticipated. He snaps back toward me and yells, “Don’t!” His Saffie accent shakes with anxiety.
This poor kid. Where did he come from? And without warning, lots of faces run through my head. The kid Lars shot in the woods, the one Alec called Solomon. Lars himself. Others we’ve killed over the years. A little girl called Christine who crushed a bug open because she was just looking to find something, anything, beautiful, and tried to seek it in death.
Because life was black and ugly and she thought that maybe, on the other side, something beautiful might escape and be free.
And I start crying.
Not sobbing, but crying without being able to stop it, the tears just rolling down my cheeks. And Liam stares at me, now unsure what the hell to do.
“Alec, look,” Zander says from the stage, “you’re making Christine cry. You need to stop your silly games.”
Alec chances a glance at me long enough to see that I am, in fact, crying. I wish I weren’t. I wish I could stop it. But in addition to just being a person who is near the end of their goddamn rope, I also think my hormones might be out of fucking control just at the moment. So I just let the tears fall.
I think of this kid, Liam. He’s so young. It’s easy to see him as someone’s son. Someone gave birth to him, and fed him, and gave him enough support for long enough that he could have life. And now whoever did that for him is no longer here and he’s found his way into this mess.
He shouldn’t be here. No one should. This is no way to live a life.
I’m crying mostly because I’m realizing that the best thing we can do is take Zander up on his offer and leave. Walk away. Danny and I can just go—somewhere, anywhere—and build a new life so that when we have our kid, that kid will never have to know what we’ve known. They won’t have to seek out beauty in the awful and grotesque because a beautiful life will already be there for them.
We can do that. We can just go, maybe back to the Cook Islands or someplace like that, and we can just… disappear. Again. For good.