“No—” Honey launched herself toward James, but Lathan was ready. He’d bet his left nut that had been the Strategist’s plan all along.
Lathan lost his grip on her hand touching his cheek, but grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back against his chest. He wrangled her into him, holding her squirming, writhing body, smelling her horror at James’s threat. “We’re not safe unless we’re touching.”
As if to affirm his words, James moved the gun away from his head and pointed it directly at Lathan. No question, the asshole was going to shoot to kill.
*
Lathan is alive. The mantra continued to play inside Evanee’s head.
A hush nestled into her limbs. She stilled. Stopped struggling. Allowed Lathan to turn her away from James. Away from his gun aimed at Lathan. No matter what happened, Lathan was alive. Alive. Nothing could hurt them when they were together.
But James—
Pgull.
Her muscles froze, rigid and painful, then released by degrees as the sound of the shot ping-ponged around her skull, finally settling into a constant ear ring.
She pulled back just enough to confirm that Lathan wasn’t harmed. He was alive. Just as she’d known he would be.
His gaze was locked on where James had stood. “We’re a shield. He shot at me and it…it backfired.” Lathan’s somber eyes shifted to her. “Don’t look. It’s bad.”
But she had to.
James lay sprawled on the ground. His feet kicked out. Scraping. Scrambling against the pavement as if death licked his heels. Then he stilled. Quick, shallow breaths popped his chest up and down. Starlight shown too bright, shimmering and shining in the thick syrup gushing from the wound in his neck.
Long moments passed, moments when Evanee couldn’t move, could only watch James’s desperate struggle against death. Her brain could not translate the scene in front of her into anything more meaningful than a TV show, as if she was a mere observer instead of a participant.
And then guilt cinched around her tighter than a straitjacket, compressing her lungs, forbidding her next breath. He was dying because of her. Because he’d found her. Helped her. Fought for her.
“It’s not your fault.” Lathan shook her a little.
“I-I need to go to him.” In the next breath, she was kneeling next to James, Lathan right there with her.
James’s eyes were partially rolled up inside his head, but they retracted and focused on her.
Lathan handed her a wad of material—his shirt. She held it in her hand and stared at it until Lathan guided her hand to James’s neck. Oh yeah. That’s what she was supposed to do. She pressed it against James’s wound. The material soaked through and wet her hands.
“We were destined.” Blood gurgled in James’s mouth, bubbled and popped like a sadistic gum bubble. “I didn’t know it at first, or I would’ve come for you sooner.”
I would’ve come for you sooner. Evanee stored the words on a shelf in the back of her mind. She’d take them out later, much later, and look at them, turn them over, examine them for all their meanings, but right now James was in front of her, dying, sucking in violent breaths that jerked his entire body.
“Those tears”—a brutal gasp of air—“are for me.”
She hadn’t even realized she was crying. “All yours,” she whispered around the wad of them in her throat. She took his hand, held it up to her face, let him feel the grief leaking from her eyes. Let him stroke her cheek with his finger one last time.
“Death’s here.” James shuddered in a breath. “For me.” His eyes moved to a place beside her.
A weird weightless, dizzy—but not quite—sensation buzzed through Evanee’s body. “I don’t want you to die.” She stroked his cheek with the back of her finger. Just like he’d always done her.
His body jerked. Once. Twice. His mouth slowly fell open. Death had taken him.
“James. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The words snagged on her sobs.
Gill burst through the trees on the edge of the road, startling her from her grief. He ran to them, gun aimed at the ground. “What’s going on?” His eyes swept over James and her, then stopped on Lathan. “Holy fucking shit. Not now.”
She turned to Lathan. His left eye fluttered around the socket, going every direction on the compass. He was doing that thing—getting SMs. From Gill? From James? But she wasn’t worried about him. Not like Gill seemed to be. Lathan was alive. Everything else would eventually work itself out. Right?
“Lathan.” She placed her hand on his cheek, smearing James’s blood on his face. Lathan’s eye stabilized and focused directly on her. He grasped her hand, moved it off his face, his expression changing into something she couldn’t read and wasn’t really in the right frame of mind to try to translate. He gathered her tight to his chest. Like a fortress, his arms closed around her, keeping her safe from everything. So much loss. So much death and blood and misery in the world.
Everything became quiet, silent except for Evanee’s soft sobbing. The stillness shattered with the noise of many feet running through the woods. Men, at least half a dozen, burst out upon the road. Bright lights, flashlights suddenly illuminated the four of them as if they were center stage of a grotesque show.
“All clear. He’s dead,” Gill called.
Everything seemed to still for a beat, but it wasn’t a peaceful sound. It was heavy and expectant and impatient. She could feel the men’s angry energy, see it in the restless way none of them could stand still and yet all of them were focused on James. She would’ve thought they’d be more interested in her.
A man walked right up to James’s body and knelt down next to him. “Am I the only one befuddled by this? How can he be the Strategist?”
How can he be the Strategist? The words corkscrewed through her mind, drilling through her memories of James, trying to find a way to make that phrase understandable.
“What’s he talking about?” she asked Gill.