“Enough of this. I’m here.” Emma glanced over her shoulder at Nate, who hadn’t moved from his place by the door. “I’ll come with you if you let him go.”
“I told you.” Isaac heard Alex whisper to him. “She’s only here for you.” He finally felt the pain in his scalp subside as the other man released the grip on his hair, but the gun stayed firmly in place against his neck.
“Emma...” Isaac said.
“Shh, shh, shh,” Alex interrupted him. “Let the adults talk.” He raised his voice and addressed Emma. “You called the cops back there. Tried to get me caught.”
“You know I didn’t. It was Marcus,” she replied without hesitation.
“Funny. He said the same about you before I killed him.”
“Check his cell phone.”
“Too late.”
“So, what, you’re here to hurt me because he lied to save himself?”
“No, I’m here to hurt you because you hurt me. Which ones have you fucked, already, huh?” Emma didn’t reply, but her eyebrows crashed downward. “You think I wouldn’t find out?” Alex laughed.
Isaac heard a snick to his left and his heart skipped a beat: he knew that sound.
“Shawn? Jaxon? Let me guess, you’ve been spreading your legs for this one, hmm?” Alex wrapped his left arm around Isaac’s waist and gently pressed the blade of his knife against his torso, just to the right of his belly button. At the feel of the metal, Isaac winced.
“Oh, please.” Emma’s voice was higher than normal, and her entire body was leaning forward slightly.
“You’ll let anyone touch you, won’t you? Let anyone fuck you. You used me, you slut.”
Alex’s blade slowly slid inside of Isaac’s stomach. Sharp, burning pain lanced through his body as he screamed in agony. He struggled, desperate to get away. He could feel the knife moving inside of him, and a sudden gush of hot liquid coursed down his side. Isaac’s body tried to double over, but Alex held him upright.
“Oh, hush, it doesn’t hurt that bad.” Alex twisted the knife a fraction of an inch and laughed as a fresh cry ripped forth from Isaac. He never took his eyes off of Emma, who stood a few feet in front of him, tears coursing down her face.
“Back up, love, or I’ll just keep cutting on him.”
Isaac’s vision flared white, and when it focused again, he saw that Emma had quickly retreated away from them. He felt another sharp pain slice through him as Alex withdrew his blade. He gagged at the misery in his side, then dry heaved.
His sight flared once again, and he found himself on his hands and knees, unsure as to how he fell. Isaac saw a puddle of his own blood that decorated the gravel beneath him, and his eyes drooped. Out of nowhere, a spray of stone jumped around him as Emma skidded in front of him.
“Come on, tiger, stay with me.” She spoke quickly, her voice slightly distant. Her presence alone filled him with the urge to live, and Isaac scrambled to his feet, one hand over his leaking wound.
“What happened?” He shook his head and his thoughts cleared for a moment, as if the movement reorganized them. Emma didn’t reply but started to pull him away from the edge of the roof, back toward the door they’d all come through. Isaac glanced over his shoulder and was shocked and thrilled to find Alex on his knees, Glock two feet away in the gravel. A man in all grey stood over him. Alex’s throat was gripped in the man’s left hand, his face bloody no doubt from precise blows the costumed man was providing.
“Stop.” Nate had jumped forward from the door to aid his boss, but at the sight of them retreating, he turned his gun on Emma. “Let Alex go,” he shouted at the vigilante, “or I’ll fucking kill them both.”
Grim paused and turned toward Emma as they retreated, and Isaac’s blood chilled. He’d never seen Grim in person, but now could understand why so many feared the hero. The oversized eyes and ragged slits where the mouth should be were a horrific sight.
“You shoot them, I kill you nice and slow.” Grim didn’t release his grip on Alex’s throat.
“I don’t give a shit. You came here to save someone, and it damn well isn’t us.” Nate laughed. “You show up for every damsel in distress? Or is it the pretty boy you want to save?”
Grim turned, pulling a struggling Alex with him by the neck. He stalked forward, head tilted.
Nate shrugged and fired a round. His arm jerked to the side, and the bullet flew from the gun, missing both Isaac and Emma entirely.
“What the fuck?” The driver stared at his hands. Before he could aim again, Grim reached where he stood and snapped the man’s right arm with a squeeze. Nate screamed and dropped his gun.
Movement from Alex drew Isaac’s attention. The man was fumbling behind him, pulling something out of the band of his dress pants. It took a moment for Isaac to realize Alex had stashed another gun, but before he could cry out and warn the vigilante, Alex drew the weapon up and fired a shot into Grim’s back.
—-
Emma screamed, her ears ringing. Nate leaned against the wall by the door, face glazed with pain, now ignoring the scene before him. Grim had toppled to his left side from the force of the bullet, and now writhed on the ground, gloved hands clutching fistfuls of gravel. She began to back away, injured Isaac in tow, attempting to put as much distance as possible between them and the others. Grim’s legs aren’t moving why aren’t his legs moving oh god oh god oh god Alex what have you done? What have I done?
Alex rose to his feet, out of breath but smiling. His glasses had fallen to the gravel, shattered. His nose leaked blood and was obviously broken, slanted in multiple directions, and his left eye was nearly swollen shut. Gore and slime trickled down his face from the socket where Grim had hit him, popping the eyeball. Alex didn’t seem to notice.
She needed to get Isaac to safety, get him to a doctor, but to try for the door now would be suicide. She backed further along the roof. A quick glance around showed her a small protrusion of a skylight a few yards behind her, and she began to pull Isaac toward it when Alex emitted a chilling, manic laugh.
“You’re not moving, sweetheart.” The gun was now pointed directly at her. Emma saw dark spots in his grin where his teeth had been shattered. He lifted his right foot and placed his heel on Grim’s chest. The man on the ground cried out in fresh pain as Alex leaned all of his weight forward, laughing at the agony he was causing.
“I have an idea.” His ruined face was alight. He removed his foot and Grim gasped audibly in relief. Alex bent over, his gun trained on a point between the man’s eyes. He gripped the top of his mask, and pulled. “And behind door number one...” His expression went from amused to shocked then back again. “Are you kidding me?” Alex laughed.
The mask had slipped off to reveal the handsome face and shaggy brown hair of Shawn, Emma’s world stopped. No...she thought. Not possible. Shawn can’t be Grim. Shawn. Shawn is Grim.
Emma didn’t know how, but it didn’t matter; she’d put him in danger along with Isaac, and she sagged to the ground. This is all my fault. Isaac’s hand gripped her shoulder in a tight squeeze as he, too, stared forward, breathing through gritted teeth.
Movement to the right tore her gaze from Shawn and Alex as Jaxon burst through the doorway, shock on his sweat covered face, his chest heaving. Oh, God. He’s going to get himself killed.
“No!” Jaxon started toward Shawn, then froze as the Ruger Alex held whipped up and pointed in his direction.
“Innocent little Jax,” Alex said with a sneer. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Trembles shook Jaxon’s body and his breath shot in and out of his nose. “Back off.” His voice was loud, confident. He took a step forward.
Alex dropped the Grim mask and immediately placed the barrel of his gun between Shawn’s eyebrows. “I know this piece of shit is your brother. I suggest you stay where you are.”
“Alex, come on, man,” Isaac yelled from behind Emma, his voice clear despite his injuries. “You’re better than this. Smarter. You’re not—”<
br />
“Oh, fuck off, kid.”
A moment of hope filled Emma’s heart as Alex stumbled and his good eye glazed. He moaned for a moment, then laughed, the sound a maniacal utterance in the night. “I can’t believe you shot me, Emma.”
She’d forgotten entirely that a bullet was still lodged in the back of his leg. Maybe he’s lost a lot of blood, she thought. Maybe he’ll get weaker until we can—
Emma’s thoughts were interrupted by the loud snap of his Glock as Alex shifted his arm down and put a bullet into Shawn’s right thigh. The vigilante didn’t seem to notice. Emma let out a scream of fury that tore across the roof, and she lunged forward as she heard Alex say, “And here I was afraid of you.”
Isaac screamed her name as she moved out of his grasp. Alex laughed and shot at Shawn again. His arm twitched at the last moment, and the bullet bounced into the gravel of the rooftop yards away. “I said back off, fucker!” Jaxon screamed from by the rooftop entrance. His face was contorted with rage, his hands two balled fists at his side.
Alex moved his gaze from Emma and directed it at the wiry man. He smiled and aimed the nose of his gun between Shawn’s eyes, and his finger slid over the trigger. “Watch this,” he jeered.
—-
Alex brought his attention back to the man on the ground before him, who held his arms up in an exhausted attempt at defending himself.
A sudden haunting wail made the hairs on his neck and forearms stand at attention, and he glanced up. The hideous sound was coming from all around. Shadows stretched and moved on their own, and the night darkened as a grey mist formed in a circle around the roof. The six of them were suddenly buffeted by a harsh, swirling wind as the fog began to twirl and undulate. Alex looked around at the others, his gaze coming to rest on the man in the doorway, and what he saw defied any sort of reality he had come to know.
Jaxon stood with his feet planted on the gravel of the rooftop, his sweat-soaked, black hair whipping back and forth. His arms were raised to the sides of his head, fingers splayed outward to frame his face. The man’s mouth was open impossibly wide, displaying bright teeth in the dark night, and his eyes had gone completely white.
Alex took a step away from Shawn. What the fuck is happening? He raised his gun, pointing it at the terrifying image before him.
Before he could shoot, harsh laughter floated around the rooftop, coming from all directions at once, and Alex froze. Near Jaxon, Nate began to back away toward the door, horror on his face. A few yards to the right, Emma cowered into Isaac, who flinched at the movement against his wound, but tightened his arms around her nonetheless in an attempt to shield and protect her from what they were witnessing.
—-
Shawn struggled to comprehend what was happening. His chest felt heavy, as if someone weighing four hundred pounds was sitting on it, burning with a concentrated fire he could not see. What terrified him more, however, was the fact that he couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t move them, hadn’t even felt the second bullet from Alex’s gun tear through his leg. More than once, he attempted to kick at Alex’s legs, but his body refused to cooperate. The word paralyzed shot through his mind, and Shawn began to hyperventilate, breathing loudly. Oh God no. Please let me heal. Please, I can’t—
Wind picked up around him, and Shawn’s mind drew from his broken body to the safety of Jaxon, of Emma. Feeling along the roof with twitching fingers, Shawn stared at his severely blurred surroundings. Countless dark smudges moved and flitted across his vision. My vision, it’s going. I need the mask, I need to stop my eyes from going fully blind. I need to save my brother.
Moments later, his fingers connected with the Grim mask. Pulling it over his head, Shawn’s eyesight sharpened. Alex stood above him, gun in hand. Emma was a few yards away with her friend, who was clutching an open stomach wound with a bloody hand. But the sight that chilled his very soul was his brother, surrounded by dark grey ghosts, eyes purely white, fury etched onto his face. Oh, fuck. It wasn’t something wrong with my sight. It wasn’t me. It was Jax the whole time.
The ethereal laughter continued to pulsate. Shawn craned his head backward. “Jaxon? Jaxon, what—”
“Quiet,” Alex snarled. He whipped Emma’s gun back down to Shawn’s face and pulled the trigger.
—-
Isaac jumped at the noise of the weapon’s discharge. The bullet tore through the damp air and embedded itself into the side of the rooftop’s wall to Alex’s left, yards away. A deeper laughter echoed in the night, this time coming directly from Jaxon, his eyes still white, his arms now rigid against his sides.
Alex stared down at his arm holding the gun, face baffled. He looked back up at Jaxon and his expression turned to a determined rage. Alex lifted his gun and fired two shots once more, this time at Jaxon himself. Both times, his arm flailed in a different direction.
Isaac felt a frantic laughter bubble up from his stomach and pass through his lips. The sight of Alex’s struggle was absurd, and the prick deserved whatever was happening to him, but something more pressing gnawed at him.
“Emma,” he whispered, his hushed voice a rasp. “Come on.” He winced as he rolled onto his side and struggled to all fours. He tried to squat but faltered. Emma took his hand. Trying to ignore the gravel slick with his own blood, Isaac pulled her away from Alex, their backs to the short wall of the roof’s edge. Her breath came in gasps as she let Isaac pull her away from the increasingly dangerous scene.
The small area they had been attempting to reach earlier was a small skylight encasement that stood about two feet above the stony ground. He directed her behind it to give them some cover. “Emma, listen to me,” he held her face between his hands, fear preventing him from noticing the smear of blood he coated across her skin. “We might not live through this.”
“Isaac, I don’t want to die, but I can’t let Alex win.”
“We need to stay behind here until—”
Another gunshot echoed through the night and they both flattened themselves on the gravel. Isaac gasped. The movement caused his stomach to burn in pain, and he rested his forehead on the rough stone of the roof, eyes squeezed shut as he tried to focus. He looked up at a scuffling noise to see Emma scramble to her hands and knees and crawl away from him. “No!” Isaac braced himself on his hands and pulled himself forward, reaching for her leg and missing. He fell to his stomach once more, and cried out in anguish.
“Stay there, Isaac. Let me talk to Jaxon. He trusts me, maybe I can...” Her words grew inaudible as she disappeared around the corner.
“Dammit, Emma,” he groaned. He slowly rose to his hands and knees once more, trying to ignore his wound, and moved back around the corner of the encasement, gravel cutting into the soft flesh of his palms. Alex had backed away from Jaxon. Emma stood a few feet away, shouting words that were drowned out by the howling wraiths. Isaac winced as the wound in the side of his stomach flared again, and he struggled to his own feet.
—-
Alex watched Jaxon walk forward in a slow, menacing gait, until he stood over Shawn. What the fuck? Countless figures feverishly swirled around them in the mist, their mouths gaping wide, filling the night with their screeching cries.
Nate scrambled around to the stairwell door. Using his good arm, he gripped the handle, then froze.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jaxon addressed him without turning around, without taking his blank eyes from Alex. Horror rose through Alex’s stomach and up his throat as Nate spasmed twice. A scream pulled out of the driver’s throat, and a grin spread across Jaxon’s face. Nate spun around to face them, and Alex choked. The driver’s jaw had been torn off. Blood poured down his neck and chest as he fell to his knees next to a still prone Grim. He reached up and fingered the ragged, gaping wound. A horrid moaning sound bubbled from the opening.
“What did you say earlier?” Jaxon grinned. “Oh yeah. Watch this.”
Alex’s good eye stared at Nate as his body lifted into the air. A few figures fr
om the mist shot forward, spinning in tight, irregular circles around the driver’s body. The skin of his face and hands rippled and tore away from his body in long, red strips. Nate shivered, then his back bent at an impossible angle in a crack that echoed over the rooftop. With a loud thump, his body dropped. Jaxon continued to stand still, staring at Alex with his cold white eyes.
“Please. Please, Jax. Here, look, I’m tossing the gun, okay?” He threw the weapon he held to the ground. “I just wanted Emma back. I sent her to infiltrate Cassie, I never anticipated she’d—”
Jaxon’s body shot forward through the air. He landed heavily on his feet in front of Alex in the blink of an eye.
“She works for Vance, too.” Alex stumbled, but kept talking, his words coming out fast and weak. He held his hands out in front of him, body lowered into a half-crouch, the epitome of a defenseless victim. “Vance just wanted information, but her reports came back with this ridiculous notion that she was going to kill Cassie. I told her to abandon the mission and she refused. I tried to stop her, but I was too late, she—“
“What the fuck, Alex?” Emma screamed.
“Quiet.” Jaxon ignored her. His head twitched violently. A tendril of fog encircled Alex’s neck and his words were cut off abruptly. He couldn’t breathe. His hands shot to his throat and he clawed at his neck.
Jaxon’s blank eyes turned from Alex to Emma, then back again. “What do you mean, kill Cassie? Where is she?” His voice cut through the night.
“She...she killed her...” Alex struggled to speak, only able to get a few words out at a time.
“No,” Emma screamed. “It was him, Jax.”
“It was Alex, he did it,” Isaac chimed in from behind her.
Alex felt a pressure throughout his entire body and opened his mouth in a gargled scream as he suddenly began to rise into the air.
Grim Ambition Page 24
