Cade
The only way tobecome the hero was to be selfless, and I didn’t mean in the Tommy Walker way. I meant it in the way that I would give up anything for Journey because she deserved it and was worthy of it.
I knew it from the moment I met her; her love was hidden and quiet but also strong. There was a charisma about her, this soft spot inside of her that made me want to crawl underneath it and stay there forever. She’d give up her life for someone else. That was why she was caught here in the middle of a fucking storm that was created for her.
I’ll go with them.
Over my dead body—and apparently, Bain’s dead body, too.
The back of my head throbbed as I slipped out of Slave’s grasp, gaining a knife slice at the bottom of my neck and on my shoulder. It was a plan I’d already come up with, but Journey was the one to set it into motion. The gun in Callum’s hand skittered across the dust-covered floor as Bain advanced on him, landing several feet from Journey, who I’d hoped would run the fuck out of here, but again, the girl’s love was strong—she wouldn’t leave me here even if I begged her.
And I wanted to. I didn’t want her in here witnessing what was about to go down, because one of two things were going to happen: Bain and I were going to come out on top, or Slave and Callum were. And if they were the ones to win this, she needed to get as far away from here as possible.
An uppercut to my jaw caused my line of sight to tilt, and I dove underneath the next punch to land on the knife that was stained in red. My back connected with it, and I knew that there was another cut, but I quickly fumbled to my feet when I gripped one end of the blade, cutting me again.
“Stop it!” Journey screamed.
“Journey, fucking run!” Bain shouted as his father pulled another gun out. He drove a fist into Callum’s stomach, jutting him quickly, and blood suddenly began staining his shirt. “How’s that stab wound feeling? My sister has good aim, yeah?” He’s the one who tried to take her?
I saw the hunger in Slave’s scrutiny, and I knew that he was feeling a little stabby, too. If I’d known that this was how the night was going to end, I would have been double-armed, but bringing a gun near a prison didn’t seem like the best idea, so here I was, holding a bloody knife with a man who looked at this fight as a form of child’s play.
“Journey,” I gritted. “Listen to Bain. Go. Now. We’ve got this.”
Slave and I circled one another as Callum threw his head back and laughed. There was a trickle of blood dribbling from his mouth. “You’ve got this, do you?” His laugh faded, and the devil took over. Fucking shit. I knew what was coming. Callum’s hand raised with the barrel of the gun directed at Bain, but he stood his ground. To my benefit, Slave paused, too, to watch the show, but one look of horror on Journey’s face had me winging the knife in his direction so I could slam into Bain before Journey had to watch her only family die in front of her eyes.
A gunshot reverberated in my eardrums, and it didn’t matter how many times I had heard that sound, it was still a shock to the core when it was such a short distance away. It was the chorus of my childhood, drenched in pleas and blood.
Bain and I fell to the floor, and we both scrambled to our feet to see who’d been shot. “Oh my God.” The pain in her voice gutted me, and for a moment, I thought I was the one who’d been shot, but when I saw her standing there with a gun in her hand, shaking back and forth as if the metal weighed more than she did, I rushed for her and lowered the black weapon to the floor.
“Drop it, baby. Give it to me.” Her bloodshot, stormy gaze flew to mine in shock, and it stole my breath away. A choked sob left her, and my bloody hand wrapped around hers so tightly I felt more blood rush out. “Breathe, Journey. Breathe.”
“I… I… I…” she gasped, and I panicked. I wanted to slap my hands onto her hollow, wet cheeks and blow air into her mouth to make her take a breath.
“Journey, it’s okay. Breathe.”
“I shot him. Did I kill him?” She tried to peel out of my arms to look at Callum, but I quickly pulled her back.
“Cade, get her the fuck out of here.”
I looked over at Bain, and he was straddling Slave, who had blood sputtering out of his mouth. The knife that I’d thrown was pulled out of his side and in Bain’s hands. There’s too much blood. Someone was gasping for life. I felt Journey buckle, and I caught her at the last second.
Her lifeless, weak body was scooped up into my arms, and then I left her half-brother in an abandoned building bathed in blood and got her the fuck out.
“Breathe. Just breathe.”Journey was on my lap, clinging to me for dear life, as Headmaster Ellison paced the small space of his living room over and over again. At one point, I’d looked down at the rug beneath his feet to see if a hole had formed yet. I had a feeling he had done this numerous times over the last month.
“What were you thinking?” Tate stopped pacing and placed his hands on his hips, staring directly at his daughter, Gemma. “You just became safe, and now I find out you go with Journey to an abandoned building to find a nun who is missing? Is this a joke? You walked right into a trap!”
“We didn’t know it was a trap.” Gemma was pacing just like her father, but she was behind the couch Journey and I were sitting on. “And what was I supposed to do? Just let Journey go alone and possibly die?”
Isaiah let out a hefty breath and slammed the back of his head on the couch. “It’s done now, Tate. Let it go.”
“Let it go?” he shouted, making Journey jump.
“Tate,” I gritted, giving him a stern look. His attention flew to Journey, and then he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Gemma, you’re grounded.”
Isaiah’s laugh filled the room, and although the situation was completely fucked up, and my insides were traumatized and mangled, I had to bury my face in Journey’s hair to keep my smile hidden.