What voices?
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, hoping he could hear her.
He took his hands off his ears. “The doctors say I have a brain tumor, but they’re wrong. The voices show up on the MRI as a mass, and radiologists think it’s cancer, see? I’m dying. Dying. Dying. Dying.” He smiled at her. “But now, I get to die with you, so it has all turned out right in the end.”
She was running out of time. Even if he arrived before the bomb went off, there was nothing Sawyer could do to save her. She was on her own.
She didn’t want to die, but she acknowledged her chances of getting out of this were slim to none. Still, she had to try.
She collapsed to her knees, playing the role of a lifetime. Playing Helen. “I loved you once.”
“Yeah. There were good times, weren’t there?” He was lost in the memories, oblivious to her crawling across the floor toward her brothers. “Before things got so complicated, and it was just you and me against the world? Do you think you could love me again, Helen? Could we go back to the way it was from the beginning?”
“Yes,” she said nodding, making her way to Asa. “But you first have to keep that bomb from exploding.”
“I can’t. The timer is running through an Internet app. If anyone tries to disarm it, it’ll go off. The only way to halt it is by stopping the timer from counting down.”
“So do that!”
“Need a computer for that,” he said, regret in his voice, as if he would’ve stopped the timer if he could. “It’s our time to go, honey. Just accept it.”
Her brothers’ blood stained her knees as she crept between them and snatched the gun from Asa’s hand. She angled her body toward her father and rose from the floor. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” She released the safety and pressed the trigger.
The gun went off, jerking in her hands and knocking her backward.
She did it again.
And again.
And again.
Until there were no bullets left to shoot.
At least two of the bullets hit him, blood splattering on her desk as he fell to the floor. She tossed her gun aside and calmly walked over to him, first kicking him with her foot to test his reaction and then removing his gun from his hand in case he wasn’t dead.
Her clothes and hands were covered in blood. Her family’s blood.
She shook her head.
No, these men weren’t her family.
She would never think of them as her family again.
Pounding shook the door. “Annaliese! What’s going on in there? I heard gunshots.”
Sawyer.
The pounding got louder. “Why is the door locked? Open it right now!”
She ran over to the door. “Sawyer! Stop! It’s wired to a bomb that will go off if the door opens.”
“Thank God you’re alive,” he said. “When I heard the gunshots I thought . . . I’ll call the bomb squad.”
“They won’t get here in time.” She caressed the door with her fingertips as if it were Sawyer. “I only have five minutes, and they can’t get in here anyway.”
“Then they can tell you what to do to disarm it.”
She sighed. “My father already told me. There’s nothing I can do. But there is something you can do.”
“Anything,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’ll do anything.”
“Leave.”
There was a long silence. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Stubborn man. She knew he’d say that.
“I’m going to die, but you don’t have to,” she said.
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
“I’m not alone.” Her gaze flew to the bloody mess lying around her. “My father and my brothers are here.”
“Let her go, you assholes,” he said in a snarl.
She sunk to the floor. “They can’t hear you. They’re all dead. My whole family is dead. Not that they were my real family.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. It’s not important.” She sighed. “But I’ll tell you what is. I love you, Sawyer. I always have, and I always will. I didn’t want to leave you, but I had to in order to keep you safe. But now my father and brothers are dead, and they can’t hurt you anymore. I’ve spent the last four years defending your life. Don’t make me die in vain. Leave. Now.”
His voice came sure and strong from the other side of the door. “I love you, Annaliese. I never stopped. And if you go, I go. You won’t be dying in vain, because all I ever wanted was to be with you. A life without you is no life at all, so please, don’t ask me to leave you. Because that’s the one thing I’ll never do.”