Victoria in the head with his gun, her body slumping to the ground and then he strode over to Jaxon, kicking his gun out of the way and picking him up like he weighed nothing. The man grinned into Jaxon’s face.
“You took my family from me,” he said through clenched teeth and Jaxon could smell his sour breath. “Now, I will finish taking yours and then take your life.”
He turned and fired the gun into Victoria’s prone body. Jaxon moaned as he watched it jerk and then lay still. He had lost again. The bastard had beat him and taken everything that mattered to him. A pain flared in his shoulder. Ice and fire screaming into his back and neck, and he welcomed it. It was like a jolt of electricity, jumpstarting his heart. He embraced the pain, moving his shoulder and creating more, a molten hot spike striking the core of his body. It made him angry, and angry was good.
Worthington was leering at Victoria, watching his handy work drain the life from her. Jaxon’s pain grew to a growling, menacing thing and it made his body tremble from the power of it. Worthington felt Jaxon shake and turned back to him.
That’s when he struck.
Thrusting his head back and then launching it forward, he struck Worthington in the face with his forehead, a loud crunching noise echoing through the room as his nose was crushed from the blow. Jaxon brought his knee up into his groin and Worthington bent over double, the gun dropping from his hand and Jaxon breaking free. As Worthington was down, Jaxon brought both hands up, his shoulder screaming in protest, but it only spurned him on. He brought both fists down on Worthington’s neck. Once. Twice. Three times, but the slab of meat that he was refused to go down. On the fourth strike, Worthington moved his head, and Jaxon’s locked fists struck his skull and he felt the bones in his hand shatter.
Worthington got to his feet and launched a blow to Jaxon’s abdomen that lifted him off his feet. The world spun and he felt his energy leave him. He sagged to the ground, but Worthington picked him up and pinned him to the wall, striking blow after blow to his body, his face, his ribs. Jaxon was losing consciousness and he knew he couldn’t hold on much longer.
A cannon went off in the room, and Jaxon’s world blazed in pain again. He had been shot again and felt the searing pain in his arm, bringing him back around. He looked into Worthington’s eyes and watched in amazement as the life leaked out of them. Worthington sank to the floor in front of him.
Jaxon looked up to see Ellie holding a gun pointed at him, her face a mask of pain and sorrow. She sobbed uncontrollably, then dropped the gun and ran to Luke. Jaxon sank to the floor as one of the Besner boys ran in through the door holding a rifle in his hands.
“Call 911!” Ellie screamed and as Jaxon blacked out, her cries followed him into the darkness.
“Don’t die! Don’t die! Come on Luke! Don’t die!”
Epilogue
Jaxon’s hands were slowly healing. It hadn’t been the shoulder or the arm causing him the most pain. Those two were nothing compared to the helplessness and pain he felt trying to do simple everyday tasks like pick up a piece of paper. The bones in his wrists had been shattered and he had two surgeries to get them back in shape. Physical therapy every day afterward had given him a new respect for the word pain. If he could have, he would have punched every one of the therapists directly in the face.
Victoria hobbled in from the kitchen and set down a glass of tea in front of him. The straw sticking out made him smile.
“You know I’m supposed to be practicing picking stuff up,” he said.
“Take a break,” she said and bent over, giving him a kiss on the top of his head.
“Besides,” he said. “I’m supposed to be waiting on you.”
She sat in the chair next to him. “You can’t even wipe your own ass.”
“Yes I can. Just not the way you think.”
“I don’t even want to know.”
She set the cane she was using down next to her and grabbed his swollen hand. It was sore, but he didn’t care. Her touch was all that mattered.
“Benton called again,” she said.
“I don’t want to talk to him.”
“That’s what I told him.” She paused. “He wanted to give you a new offer.”
“Not interested.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“What was it? Just curious.”
She smiled and told him.
“Not good enough,” he said.
“How long are you going to let him beg you?”
“Couple more weeks.”
She nodded. “You know he may just stop offering.”
He turned to her and looked into her eyes. He couldn’t seem to get the vision of her lying in that basement out of his head. She must have read his mind again and she smiled.
“I’m ok,” she said.
“Yeah-I know.”
“Call him back.”
He thought about it a few seconds and then leaned forward and took a sip of his tea through the straw.
“Soon,” he said. But he doubted he would.
Ellie sat in the swing in her backyard and rocked slowly back and forth. Her grandmother was inside washing the dishes. Having her here only reminded Ellie of the loss she felt every day.
A single tear trickled down her cheek and she turned into the setting sun feeling the warmth on her face as the cool autumn air chilled the rest of her. She would never be the same.
A hand on her shoulder startled her out of her thoughts and she jumped. Luke sat down next to her and said, “Sorry, El. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder as he pulled her to him stroking her hair with his fingers like he always did. She relaxed in his arms and she felt a little better.
Her mother’s death had been something she could not bear and no matter how many times she went through it in her mind, she could not stop feeling guilty about letting her die. If only she had been able to get free just a little sooner, she would have been able to save her too. She had horrible nightmares about her father killing her mother, and she woke almost every night crying out in terror as she heard her die over and over again, the muffled cries and thumps of her death replayed in her dreams. She shivered.
“Let’s go in,” Luke said and she nodded.
They walked hand in hand to the back door and Luke struggled to slide it open for her. She joked about how his strength was coming back after his gunshot wound, and he laughed with her, telling her he wouldn’t be a wimp for too much longer. She closed the door for him and they went to the couch and sat.
“I’m still freezing,” she said. “I’m going to go and get a blanket.”
He turned the TV on as she got up to go to her room. The blanket she wanted was not where it was supposed to be and she sighed knowing that Patrick had probably taken it. He took it out of her room like he owned it. She went to his room and sure enough, it was thrown over his chair in a heap. She grabbed the blanket and a metallic clunk hit the floor. She gasped. As she bent over, his computer caught her eye.
It was open to Facebook and she looked over his wall posts, glancing at his friends list. A name she saw caused her to take a quick breath. She clicked on it and stared in disbelief at the conversation that had gone on for months between him and William Smith. The world seemed to vibrate as she read the first post to her dead father’s alias. It was in response to the picture of Bentley’s head her father had sent him.
