I hear Astrid’s gasp behind me, and I turn my head to see her look of shock as she realizes her boss and the young man who raped my childhood girlfriend are one and the same.
Before I realize what’s happening, I hear one last Dink! My head swivels toward the bed to see a new hole in Randy’s wrist, and he cries out once before the sound turns into more laughter, the gun he was raising now being picked up from the other side of the bed by Corbin.
I was so not made for this shit. But this vile piece of shit can’t leave this room alive. He has no remorse, still taunting, his soulless eyes full of sadistic mirth at the anguish he’s caused his whole life.
“You just wait, Nerdy Neil. You just wait. I’m untouchable, invincible… no judge will ever convict me. Fuck, some of them are downstairs right now, and another couple in these rooms. They’re in my pocket. Just when you think your life is finally back to normal, and you’re finally going to get that happily ever after, that’s when I’m going to come in once again and take it aaall away. Just like I did before. And also like before, there will be nothing you can do about it. There will be nothing you can do to stop me from forcing your pretty girl to take my cock, just like I made Shelly—”
I bellow in rage, my hand shaking as my grip on the gun tightens to the point of pain around the metal. My mind battles with my heart. I need to wipe the earth clean of this motherfucker’s evil. I’m within my own code, life for a life, because there is nothing that would convince me he didn’t kill the girl they found in the woods. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look over at Brian again, but the girl next to us on the bed hasn’t moved even a twitch with all the chaos surrounding her, and I’m pretty sure she’s gone too.
But I swore an oath when I became a doctor, made a promise to do no harm. And that’s the only thing making me question everything. Making me question how this night will play out.
“Ooh, and it wasn’t Shelly’s sweet little cunt that started it all for me. No, it was when I found out I affected her so much she killed herself. Sacrificed herself because of me. She’s the only one who’s ever given her life, and I’ve spent mine trying to match the feeling of what it was like to read she’d committed suicide. Now I have to do aaall of it myself. Selfish little whores. But watching them stop breathing is a close second.”
So that’s it then. He’s turned into a serial killer. He’s tried to recreate what he felt when my Shelly ended her own life because of him, by murdering other women while raping them. And now I know for a fact he’s taken lives with his own hands.
And as he opens his mouth to continue his taunts, to resume his insults and sadistic promises, I place my finger on the trigger, bending close to his face so only he can hear me.
“You might’ve taken my Shelly from me, but it’s because of you I have the life I do now. I’ve made a living out of putting fuckers like you in the ground, Elias, and I never thought I’d see the day when I got to add your stone to the cemetery you started yourself twenty-four years ago.” I let my wrath take control of my features, and when he looks in my eyes, his laughing taunts stop and I see fear creep into his eyes for the first time in our lives.
And just as I slowly squeeze the trigger…
Delicate fingers wrap around my hand holding the gun.
I turn to look over my bicep, huge and flexed with my rage, and I see Astrid’s angelic face. Her features are soft, eyes loving but worried, and she gives me a small smile.
“You don’t need to do this, Viking,” she says gently, glancing down at Elias and then back up at me, her eyes twinkling. “This isn’t who you are, my love. You’re a healer, Neil. But this man is too broken on the inside. You can’t heal him, so you need to just walk away.”
“She’s right, brother,” Corbin says on the other side of the bed. “There’s no going back once you take someone’s life. You’ll have to deal with it for the rest of yours.”
There’s a groan from the floor, and I see Brian’s head come over the end of the bed as he sits up. “Fuck, .45s fucking hurt like a son of a bitch,” he growls, getting to his knees and pulling the neckline of his shirt down to show the bullet stopped by his black bulletproof vest, and my finger leaves the trigger as relief fills me.