The Fall of V (The Henchmen MC 13)

But she continued on with her friend behind her, looking at the lone guard in the front, seeing him get called away, then whispering something to the other girl before they both ran like hell.

But her friend was snagged from behind, her young body jerking violently back, slamming into V's shoulder. Her beautiful, broken face seemed to crumble as the cold muzzle of a gun pressed into her temple, like the weight of the world was on her, like she knew what was ahead for her when she got dragged back inside, how V would make her suffer for trying to escape. My heart broke for her, even knowing we were going to save her, get her back at any cost, take her away from this hell, I could feel - even from across a field - the deep, hopeless anguish coming from her even as V taunted Ferryn, made her stop dead in her tracks, turning back, away from me, making it impossible to see if there was fear there, horror, uncertainty on how to proceed.

She could have chosen the easy path.

She could have kept running.

To her freedom.

Leave the doomed girl to her fate.

But no.

Not my daughter.

My daughter screamed across the field, told my mother to give it up, informed her that she had a black hole for a heart, reminded her of the torture she had inflicted upon me all those years ago.

But then the girl, her friend, mouthed an apology, making Ferryn's shoulders widen, her spine straighten.

And then V - my mother - signed her death certificate.

By threatening to have the girl raped in front of my daughter, forcing her to watch, blaming her for the incident.

I didn't fully seem to register the arm raising, the gun pointing.

The only thing I was aware of was the bang of the explosion as the bullet left the barrel.

As it soared through the air.

As it hit V right in the forehead.

"Oh my God," I hissed, unable to quite grasp it, to accept that my daughter - this girl so innocent in life aside from silly teenaged stuff - had just taken a life.

But there was no time to think on that as men came running, as Henchmen and Hailstorm men and women took them out.

Ferryn stayed frozen at first, watching the carnage before finally turning, seeking us in the tree line.

And she looked right at me.

Right at me.

I couldn't explain the look I found in her eyes - eyes so much like my own that I had always found them easily readable.

And that was chilling.

Not to be able to read her.

To have her staring right at me, somehow seeing me even in the distance, and not be able to know what she was thinking.

Her look was shut down.

Not blank.

Guarded.

Reinforced.

As I sat too stunned to move, Reign broke free from my side, Lo from my other, both of them charging forward.

I saw the second she recognized them.

But there wasn't relief.

There was something else.

Something that almost looked like a grim determination.

Before she did something that, no matter how I thought on it after, I could never understand.

She turn and ran.

But not before telling her friend that she was safe, that her dad and aunt and me would take care of her.

I jumped up as I saw her disappear toward the back of the house, watching as Cash, Virgin, and Pagan took off after her.

I wasn't even aware of the sensation of running until I was in the back of the property, seeing Malcolm and Edison tear into the woods as well, on her trail.

They wouldn't catch her.

Don't ask me why I thought that, how I knew that, but I did.

They wouldn't catch her.

And maybe part of that had to do with the fact that she was fast. So fast that sometimes she blurred when she ran.

But a bigger part, I was sure, had to do with the decision to go.

The decision to leave.

To run away from us instead of toward us.

When she was clearly in her right mind enough to know that she was safe, that we were a means of protection since she told her friend exactly that.

I would never catch her.

I felt an overwhelming sense of uselessness as I stood in that yard as half a dozen of my loved ones - my husband included - tore into those woods after her, while the rest stayed behind, guns out, moving inside the house.

The house where there were likely still threats.

Threats that could open up a window and shoot out at any moment, take my life right from me.

But I couldn't seem to muster the drive to find shelter until the storm passed as I stood planted there, eyes on the woods.

Minutes.

Hours passed.

And then Reign re-emerged.

One look at the shocked, desperate, worried look on his face told me all I needed to know.