CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

While I would have liked to get that gun from Macy before we reached Gabriel, her gaze never left me, and she made me stay ten feet away—too far to dash and catch her off guard. I kept hoping she’d trip as she walked backward. She didn’t.

What I really needed was that damned owl or raven to swoop at her head. No such luck. If they were still around, they were observing only, as they had at the psych hospital, each watching the situation for their respective team.

Barring interference by the birds, I hoped Gabriel had woken and could suss out the situation and distract her while I got the gun. Again, no such luck. I could see him ahead, lying exactly where I’d left him. So it was all up to me.

“You’re really going to kill him?” she said as she stopped ten feet behind Gabriel’s head.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You can die with him.”

“Not really an option.”

She smiled. “I didn’t think so. Now come over here, on that side of him, put your hands around his neck, and squeeze.”

“Wh-what?”

Another smile as she shook her head. “You thought I was going to give you the gun? Not a chance. He’ll die the way Ciara did. Strangulation. It’s easier than you’d think.”

Shit. Still not stupid.

When I didn’t move, she said, “Trying to find a way out of this? There isn’t one. You’ll kill him or you’ll die.” She paused. “Or there is a third option.”

“What?”

“God, you’re quick to jump on that, aren’t you? I guess you aren’t your parents’ daughter after all. Can’t kill someone even to save your own life. Or does it depend on who the someone is? I bet you’d have killed me, if Tristan had given you this choice in that hospital. But him—” She motioned at Gabriel. “He’s different. So here’s option number three. You crawl back into that burning car. You die in there. He lives.”

I looked over sharply at her. “Bullshit. You wouldn’t let—”

“Why not? You dragged him out and went back in for something and died. Tragic accident. Once you’re dead, Gabriel Walsh won’t care about Ciara and the case. Tristan will accept that it was an accident, and I’ll get my DNA results another way.”

“The moment I’m in that car, you’ll shoot Gabriel.”

“If he’s dead of a gunshot, that’s no accident.”

“Then you’ll drag him back into the car.”

“With what? A crane? I can’t make his death look like an accident, Eden, so he gets to live. That’s the deal. The question is, will you take it?”

I looked at her. I looked at Gabriel. She was too far away for me to get a jump on her. I had no weapons. My gun was . . .

I looked at the smoke-filled car. The flames were in the front seat now, licking the fabric. If I could find my purse . . .

What exactly were the chances of that? Finding my purse and getting my gun before passing out from smoke inhalation? Not good. But the alternative? There wasn’t one.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

She didn’t answer, just looked at me as if I was a fool.

I walked to the car. Heat and smoke streamed out. I couldn’t even see the door, just the dark shape of the black car, lost in the smoke. I dropped to all fours.

“Don’t stall,” Macy said. “If you give me any excuse, I have a backup plan. I’ll shoot you both.”

I crawled through the smoke, eyes closed as I breathed through my nose. My fingers touched the side of the car, and I let out a yelp, metal burning my fingertips.

“Keep going,” Macy said. “If I can still see your shoes in ten seconds—”

A shot fired. I hit the ground, flat on my stomach.

Oh God, she’d shot Gabriel.

I jumped up into a crouch—

“Don’t move or I fire again.”

I froze there, brain stuck on the words. No, not the words. They were exactly what I’d expect. It was the voice that stopped me.

“Olivia? Are you all right?”

Gabriel’s voice. Then his footfalls.

I staggered from the smoke to see him jogging toward the car with my gun trained on Macy, who was hunched on the ground, her hand pressed to her side, blood streaming through her fingers. Her gun hung from her other hand.

I wheeled on Gabriel. “Make her drop—!”

“Drop the gun,” he said before I could finish.

She raised her head and looked from him to me, her eyes dull with shock.

“I said drop it.” Gabriel took two steps toward her. “You’re injured. Perhaps badly. You need an ambulance, and as soon as you put that gun down, I will call one.”

She lifted the gun, slowly, training it on me. Gabriel fired. His shot hit her in the leg, and she fell back with a stifled scream.

“I won’t kill you,” he said. “No matter how much you might want that. I will simply continue to shoot you until you pass out and drop the gun.”

She raised her head and stared at him, her eyes blazing, furious. She’d go to jail for killing Ciara, and that reunion with her real family would never happen. It was over, and all she wanted now was some final satisfaction. To die knowing we’d suffer, too, fighting to clear our names. If we wouldn’t give her that . . .

“She’s going to—” I didn’t get the rest of the words out.

Macy swung the gun up. Gabriel fired. She did, too—gun trained upward, shot going through the bottom of her jaw. She was dead before she slumped to the ground.

Gabriel still ran over . . . to grab the gun from her hand as it dropped to her side. Only then did he seem to realize the shot had been fatal, and he stood there, looking down at her. Then he lowered himself to one knee, reached into her pocket, took out her cell phone, and called the police.

—

“I think we’ve been here before,” I said to Gabriel as he sat on the back bumper of the ambulance while a paramedic examined the gash on his head. “Except last time, I didn’t total your car.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “And it’s well insured.”

“I still feel bad.”

A soft chuckle, pointing out, I suppose, that of everything that had happened this evening, his car ought to be the least of my concerns. I was more worried about him, but I knew better than to say that. I’d asked, of course, right after he’d called the police, and he’d brushed the question aside with a brusque “I’m fine.”

Now he was struggling to sit with relative patience as the paramedic checked him over. I’d already had my examination—Gabriel had insisted I go first. I’d swallowed some smoke, bumped my head, sliced open my arm, and possibly cracked a rib in the crash, though I’d begun to notice the pain only after everything settled down.

Macy was dead. How did I feel about that? Relieved that Gabriel hadn’t been the one to shoot her, because I didn’t want him dealing with that, either legally or emotionally. As for how he’d gotten my gun, he’d apparently regained consciousness while I was hiding behind that couch. My purse—with the gun—hadn’t been in the car at all, but had been thrown free from the wreck. He’d spotted it, retrieved the gun, and played possum until he got his chance.

Otherwise, what did I feel about Macy? Not much. She’d had a crappy life, but that didn’t justify murder. Ciara hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been struggling with the biological destiny of having fae blood. Her death was a tragedy. Macy’s was not.

Macy’s death was, however, a problem, because, as I said, Gabriel and I had been here before, a month ago, police and paramedics called to the scene after someone tried to kill us. There’s a limit to how often that can happen before the cops start to wonder what the hell you’re up to. I think that limit is one.

Gabriel’s basic advice was to keep my mouth shut. We’d both suffered head injuries. Given the crash and the aftermath, we could claim confusion and trauma, and say as little as possible.

The paramedic finished and proclaimed that Gabriel might be suffering from a mild concussion. He should get himself to the hospital, and he should be woken every hour tonight. I doubted I’d get him into a hospital, but I promised to look after him.

When the paramedic left, Gabriel stood. I would have sworn it wasn’t possible for someone with skin so fair to turn pale, but he did. There was a tinge of green there, too.

“Take it easy,” I said.

“I’m—”

“I didn’t ask if you were okay. I know better than to do that more than once, and even then not to expect an honest answer. I’m just asking you to take it easy, because you look like you’re going to throw up, and that will get you hauled to the hospital whether you like it or not.”

He nodded and straightened, tugging on his shirt and adjusting it, as if it wasn’t blood-spattered and filthy. Then he looked down at me. “I am a little queasy. And my head hurts. Also, there’s a slight pain in my shoulder, but it didn’t seem worth mentioning. None of that, however, will impede me.”

I smiled. “Nothing ever does. Come on. Let’s talk to the police and get out of here.”