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)
I know what’s happening with Danny and Alec. Always. And I always will. It’s why I can forgive Alec for anything. It’s why Danny can forgive me. It’s why we will always find each other and come together, no matter what happens. We were made to be together. We are the only ones who understand each other.
Because we are each other.
There’s like eight billion people on the planet. There may be one or two other people who might be able to understand us like we understand each other, but so far, we haven’t met them. And that’s fine. We don’t need ’em. We have us.
My view through the scope of the rifle is narrow, but what I see is pretty clear: A red-headed Irish giant, standing on a catwalk above Danny and Alec, two pistols pointed toward the ground below, ready to take the lives of the only people I’ve ever truly loved.
I can’t hear anything going on inside. I have no idea what’s being said. But if I had to bet my life on it (and, technically, I suppose we all kind of are), I’d be able to tell you exactly what’s happening in the warehouse. I could probably do it even without being able to see what I can.
Danny and Alec slipped in. Danny approached the situation carefully, with the intention of getting info in the most de-escalatory way possible. Alec took the most opposite approach he could. And then, suddenly, everyone was standing around pointing guns at each other, waiting to see who’s the craziest, the stupidest, or both.
Yeah. I know them.
And a pinprick somewhere in my brain, or stomach, or maybe even my heart alerts me to the fact that if I don’t pull the trigger and kill Declan Lynch right now, there will be no more Alec, Christine, and Danny.
So I breathe, let my index finger tighten, and take the shot.
And then the pretty blue of the world is crushed to bits and replaced by the bright red spray of a man’s head being pierced through by a steel-tipped projectile traveling at over three hundred meters per second.
The moment Lynch disappears from out of my sight, things get very, very fast in very short order. I see it all unfold from my front-row perch…
There is an eruption of gunfire from inside the building across the street. I mean, like, an eruption. I can still only see through the sliver of window that runs along the warehouse’s wall, but I can hear the pop, pop, pops going off inside. People on the sidewalk can obviously hear it too because everyone on the street starts running for cover. (I get the feeling this kind of thing is maybe more common than not in this neighborhood.)
The only two people I see not running for cover are a couple of fellas pretending to be dumb Cockney guys slap-fighting on the corner. Instead, they head in the direction of the gunfire, their own guns now drawn.
Charlie and Brenden arrive at the warehouse just as the big, metal door that’s the main point of entry flies open and what I recognize as a black Buell 1100 motorbike comes screaming out, one young-looking, skinny, red-haired kid driving it and another sitting behind him on the bitch seat. Which is a term I find half-annoying and half-hilarious, depending on who’s riding bitch. I don’t know enough about these two guys to make a determination. But they look gangly and terrified and some part of me gets sad for a blink. I don’t know if I’d call what I feel “maternal” exactly, but for the briefest of moments, I hope we don’t wind up killing these two.
I must be getting soft. Or maybe I’m just tired.
Alec leaps over the bodies of three or maybe even four guys who appear to have gone down in the explosion of gunfire I heard and joins Charlie and Brenden at the entrance, all three of them firing on the motorcycle. I can’t make out whose bodies Alec has jumped over, but I don’t see Danny standing beside him like I would have expected.
And that chill that doesn’t come from the air is back again.
The kids on the bike have now blazed out into the street, the one in the rear shooting back at Charlie, Brenden, and Alec.
I have to be honest: It looks ridiculous. It looks like a contrived scene from some paint-by-numbers action movie or something. But it’s not. It’s happening. Right here in front of me.
This is my real life.
An office assistant I most definitely am not.
I don’t know if it’s Charlie, Brenden, or Alec’s bullet that hits the tire, but someone’s does and the bike goes down. Hard. It skids out and sends the kids flying as it grinds along the street before sliding to a stop in front of the car Russell’s sitting in. He darts out, bounds over the bike, and starts running toward the two boys, who are trying to limp away as they are being converged upon by Russell from one side and Alec, Brenden, and Charlie from the other.