Blood to Dust (39 page)

Fucking Camden.

I jog out and signal for a cab, but they’re all busy. It’s early in the afternoon. Suited men and women pour in and out of taxis. Time is wasted, and I hate that I’m running out of it. She needs me
now
.

Finally, a black cab stops in front of me and I jump into it and rap the divider frantically, giving him the address.

He got to us before we got to him. He conned us into thinking he was out of the country. We were so drunk on being happy once in our fucking lives, we lost focus.

The driver’s trying to strike up a pleasant conversation from the plastic screen, but soon realizes that my current state doesn’t really allow talking. Or breathing, for that matter.

We were so sure Camden would run or hide behind burly, brainless soldiers like the rest of them. We committed the very same sins that made Sebastian and Godfrey’s hourglasses run out of sand. We got comfortable. And cocky.

Pea and I had gotten away with so much during those short few days. Unplanned and uncalculated, we took them down, one by one. It was almost too good to be true. It made us feel invincible. Now, I worry that I might soon find out that we are anything but.

When the cab stops in front of Archer’s building, I bolt out, leaving fuck knows how much money behind me. Maybe more than a fat tip. Maybe not enough to cover the fare. I jog up the stairs to the second floor, taking them three at a time, and throw the door open without knocking. I’m met with a beefy guy in uniform—a waiter or a driver or fuck knows what. He charges from a tuxedo sofa in the living room right in my direction, waving a vaporizer pen in his hand.

High on adrenaline and fury, I let him run all the way to my spot near the door before slamming his head into the nearest wall. But then I feel it. In my stomach.

He digs the pen into my abs on a throaty roar, leaving it inside as he collapses to the floor. The scent of blood comes before the sting of the blade. Then I see it. And when I see it—it’s everywhere.

All the red.

The pen is not a pen. The pen is a fucking knife. A sharp motherfucker, too.

I stagger back, staring down at the hole in my middle. Not too big, but way too deep.

The cocksucker gutted me. I need to get to Prescott before I drop dead from blood loss or fucking Peritonitis.

Maybe it hurts. I believe that it does. Bile shoots up my throat and a blood stain spreads rapidly across my white shirt. I pull the knife out in one go, sighing in relief when it doesn’t come out along with my intestines, roll my attacker on his back and stab him in the throat. The knife slides all the way through until it meets the floor. His limp body comes to life, jerking one more time before he gives in and drops dead.

Pen in hand, I stumble into the corridor, the
drip, drip
of my blood sounding against the floorboard. I see a door ajar and know what awaits inside. I crack it open. I want to charge through it like a blizzard, but with every step I take, my vision becomes blurrier, my steps wobblier. Am I dying? I might be. But I don’t care.

Prescott
.

The bastard’s back is to the door. Who does that? Who gives his rival his back?
Someone who wants to die
.

Someone who wants to be surprised.

Someone who knows I won’t kill him because he’s got something of mine that I want back
.

I sway like a drunk, bumping into the wall and the dresser in his bedroom, until the knife is pressed against his throat. He probably thought I’d never get this far, that I’d be intercepted in the living room by his muscle man.
Surprise, scumbag.

“Let her go.”

I’m blinking furiously, trying to regain focus, and I know I’m dripping blood all over him, but when the sight in front of me registers, I have bigger problems than losing consciousness.

Camden Archer is sprawled on a plush recliner in his room, facing a window.

Underneath him, on the floor, sits Prescott, beaten to a pulp.

A gun to her temple. A hand wrapped around her neck that’s bruised in purple and red. I feel my throat tighten.
Breathe. Inhale. Don’t lose your shit.

“Diabla was the only disease I couldn’t seem to shake.” His posh English accent sounds so far away right now. He’s stroking her head. Why’s he stroking her head? I want to stop him but can’t. I know that if I don’t kill him soon, I’ll die myself. But I can’t chance pressing the knife to his throat, because he might pull the trigger.

“What is it about Prescott Burlington-Smyth that brings grown men to their knees?” he wonders aloud. My body failing me, I collapse and grab the back of his seat for balance. He doesn’t care that I have the knife pressed to his throat. I have a feeling he doesn’t care about anything anymore.

But I do. I care so much about the girl who’s forced to sit between his legs. And it’s ruining me that I can’t save her.

“It’s okay to fall, Nathaniel. We all fall sometimes.” His gun strokes the hair away from her forehead in a way that’s almost endearing. “You know, I saw you a few years ago when I visited my father in San Dimas. No one came to visit you. You were burning time in the yard. You looked so invisible inside that big body of yours. You think you found something to live for, but she belongs to me. The art of letting go. . .” He snickers. “I was never good at it.”

“Kill us both and walk away, Nate. I want him dead,” my brave girl commands in the background, but I can’t hear very well anymore. Everything becomes white. Voices are muffled. My watch stops ticking.

I’m selfish. I will never let him kill her, even if that’s what she wants.

“Yes, Nathaniel. Kill us both,” I hear him echo through red, searing pain that throbs between my temples. “Our time is up.”

For the first time since Pea and I got together, something dawns on me.
I can’t save her
. This time, she’s on her own.

It takes me long seconds to realize that I’m down on the floor, my eyes wide in terror. I stare at the legs of the recliner, Pea’s back between Camden’s legs. I want to move. I
need
to move. To jump out of my skin and be strong for her. A river of blood, my blood, starts streaming toward her.

Struggling to keep my eyes open, I try to talk to her, even though I can barely move my lips. White becomes black, and the wild ride we had together is coming to an end. If there were one last thing I could feel before I die, I’d want it to be her stupid stress ball bouncing off my face. She looked so hopeful and lively the day we rode out of Stockton together. It made me fall for her. All that spirit. She fucking sparkled, a stick of dynamite in the pitch black of my existence. Country Club didn’t give me any choice. She ripped my heart from my chest. Is it a surprise that I can only get hard for one girl, that she is only wet for me? She gives me storm, and I give her peace.

But I can’t give her my peace right now.

Because I’m gone.

So plain looking, he couldn’t stand out in a sea of black. But he wears tailored suits, a cunning smile and the confidence of a man who never had to count his pennies.
Likes:
Drinking, screwing and using his father’s power to get his way.
Loves
: Me.
Hates:
Everything and everyone who might get between him and me.

“Put the gun down.” My pitch dances high and low. Shit. It could have been different, if Nate wasn’t here. I would care much less about my death.

I know Camden, and if he kills me, he’ll grieve for me more than he grieved for his dad. He’s been peppering me with kisses, wet with tears and his stinking cigarette saliva, ever since he hit me and dragged me out of his car. He ordered Simon to stay in the living room and wait for Nate as he pulled me into his bedroom, kissing, crying, apologizing and slapping me across the face all at once.

So mad. So crazy. So, so insane.

He’s rambling, something about how we could’ve been great parents. I don’t hear a word he says. The only sound that bounces inside my skull is
Nate, Nate, Nate.

He’s hurt. I can’t turn around to look because of the gun that’s digging into my temple, but the blood. . .Nate’s blood is making its way to my feet. I see it running over to where I sit on the floor like a wounded animal begging to be saved, the copper scent so strong it fills my mouth, even though it’s nowhere near my tongue. Trying not to gag, I pop my neck back and forth and inhale deeply.

Please don’t die on me. Please don’t go.

It would hurt so much more than the beatings I endured from my ex-boyfriend.

“I need to take him to the hospital, Camden. You’re not your dad. You can’t get rid of two bodies without leaving evidence. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”

He wrenches me by the hair so that my ear meets his lips, the skin of my forehead stretches from the impact of his grip.

“You can’t give me what I want, because you already gave it to the poor sod who is dying on the floor behind us. That’d be your heart, by the way.”

My goddamn tears betray me again. I’m shaking violently. He’s dying. My peace, my everything, may already be gone.

“Camden, anything. Name it. I’ll give it to you. I came here for my brother, not for you,” I lie. “I’m over what happened between us. I just want my family back.”

And Nate
is
my family.

I’m trying to sound firm, but not desperate.

“I don’t want your life, Prescott. I want what I set out for. Even after everything you’ve done to me. . .to my family. All I want is you. That cold thing that beats inside your chest,” he hisses, grabbing onto my left boob and pinching hard. I feel urine trickling between my thighs, which prompts my eyes to leak too. “That’s the thing I ache for.”

“Then have me. Let me take him to the hospital, release Preston, and I’ll come back. I promise.”

Nate has his fake passport and some money left. He could make it, and help Preston. Complete my quest in my absence. I trust him. That’s if he’s still alive. I might fall behind and become a slave again. But it’s a price I’m willing to pay after everything he’s done for me. It’s a price I
want
to pay, despite the consequences.

Camden places his lips on top of my head again, stroking it like I’m a fragile doll. It’s chilling. His way of treating me like nothing more than an object.

“You miss your brother.”

Careful not to react, I stare blankly at the wall. Camden wants to squeeze the shit out of my despair and agony. Breaking apart will only make him stall.

“How old is he now?” Camden muses, his fingers tickling the sensitive spot behind my ear. He used to do that when we fell asleep together. Now, he does it to taunt me.

“Shouldn’t you know? Your father said he’s with you,” I sniff my runny nose, unable to keep this inside me anymore.

There’s a dramatic pause of words and movements, before he resumes running his fingers through my hair. His tone is calm and blasé.

“Prescott, love, what are you on about? Preston is dead.” I feel a shot of pain straight to my heart. He tugs my hair a little, enough to make my skull burn, still brushing my blonde waves. “He practically begged us to kill him. After you had my father and Sebastian locked up for years”—he smiles, reminiscing about the time like it was a sweet memory—“I got mad, and naturally, wanted to get even. I know you don’t care for your dad very much, and that your mom is in a crazy asylum. That left me with. . .” He extends my neck, forcing me to stare at his broad smile. “Baby Brother Dearest.”