There was a crash from upstairs—the unmistakable sound of glass splintering and breaking. I jumped to my feet, already on my way up there, but Mona caught my arm.
“Stay here,” she begged, and I did as I was told. Addison looked up to the source of the sound, his face white. I think he knew as well as we did who was up there. Elijah went to the window, striding purposefully. He pulled back the curtain, and his face dropped when he saw it.
“The car that was following us, it’s out there,” he confirmed. “He’s here. Or at least, someone is.”
“What the fuck do we do?” Mona asked, her voice small with terror. I hated hearing her that way—and suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. The combination of the photographs and the fear and the way that this guy made the people I loved feel, it overwhelmed me. I went for the door and threw it back, pursued by Elijah and Mona. Addison hung back. He probably knew better than anyone what his brother was capable of.
Standing behind the door, was Ian. How long had it been since I’d been face-to-face with this motherfucker? He was skinnier than before, leaner, but he still had those shark-like dead eyes that seemed to gleam dully in the midday light. He was holding a long, slender fire poker, and swung it at me in a desperate motion. I leapt back, spreading my arms to push Elijah and Mona with me.
“Jesus!” I shouted, glancing over at Addison. I kicked the door shut, and just as I did so, the fire poker punctured the thin wood between us. I waited for Ian to burst through the door, but he didn’t. That gave us some time to strategize.
“Addison,” I turned to him desperately, “is there another way out of here?”
“No.” Addison shook his head. He seemed oddly calm, as though resigned to his fate. “The windows are reinforced, and the only way out is through that door.”
I put my head in my hands briefly, then pulled myself upright. Well, I guess I had no choice but to go out there.
“Mona,” I turned to her and gripped her shoulders tightly, “run out once I have him out of the way, okay? You and Elijah go back to the precinct and get Ella somewhere safe. I’ll find you.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but I pressed a kiss against her lips to stop any protest. I let go of her and strode towards the door, hesitating for a moment before I opened it. I needed to keep him out of the room—that was all that mattered. Back him far enough away that he couldn’t get too close to Mona.
I pulled the door open, and found Ian standing about ten feet away—he looked terrified, maybe more than I felt. As soon as he laid eyes on me, he began to charge, coming at me fast. His breath was ragged and painful—that was all I could hear as he closed the gap between us. On instinct, I stepped out of the way—and let him straight into the room where the rest of them were hiding.
“Fuck!” I muttered to myself—but before I could tackle Ian to the ground, he had swung the poker above his head and brought it crashing down on the person standing nearest to him. Elijah.
Elijah rocked back and forth on his feet for a second, eyes blurring, before he crashed to the floor in a heap. Mona stared at him, one hand clapped over her mouth—he looked dead. I reached for her hand, adrenaline pumping through my system, and pulled her from the room. Addison would have to fend for himself—hell, I wasn’t even sure that he hadn’t been involved in setting us up in this whole mess somehow.
We made for the stairs, and found Ian in hot pursuit—I glanced over my shoulder when I heard a clatter, and saw that he had dropped the poker. We arrived at the top of the steps, and glanced around—a cold breeze rolled in from the window Ian had smashed to get in, and I pulled Mona in that direction. Tears were silently streaming down her face, but she was alive—for now.
Ian took the stairs two at a time as he chased us, and moments later, he arrived at the door of the room we were in—and he reached into the inside of his jacket. I knew that movement—I could suddenly make out the shape beneath his clothes, short and metallic and snout-nosed. A gun.
I had less than a second to put the pieces together in my head before he drew that thing and killed one or both of us—and at that range, there was no doubt the kind of damage he was going to do. I wrapped an arm around Mona’s waist, and dove for the window.
I heard the gunshot ripple through the air behind us as we landed in a heap in the bushes below. I craned my head to look up at the window and see if he was there—but there was nothing. I heard the sound of sirens in the distance, and realized Addison must have called the police and the ambulance. Ian would be on the run now—I prayed they would catch him before he had a chance to flee, but he had probably planned for this somewhere down the line.
I turned to Mona, and caught her face in my hands. “Are you okay?” I asked, examining her closely. She had a few cuts from where the glass had caught her on our way out, and a couple of bruises from the landing, but other than that, she looked okay. Her eyes met mine, big and glassy and stunned by everything that had happened. The tears had stopped for now, and I wondered just how much her mind had been twisted up by seeing something like this.
“I’m okay,” she replied, her voice small and quiet. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight, ignoring the bumps and bruises her embrace brought out on my own body. We were alive—and for now, that was a start.