Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) by Rachel Caine (books to read in your 20s female TXT) 📕

in my side too. I scream, and the sound rings in echoes, funneled to the top. I can hear the electricity in the air; I’d have been dead if I hadn’t jumped.

I’ve lost the gun I had in my hand, and I roll and crawl to grab it, and scoot myself backward until I feel a cool concrete wall. God, it hurts so much I’m weeping, shaking, barely able to catch my breath against the pressure of welling screams.

I hear the silence when the generator stops.

I hear Kez screaming. It echoes from the top of the tower like a slap from God, and then she stops. She stops.

Oh no no Kez no.

I get up. My left leg is badly shattered. I can’t put my weight on it. I make it to the stairs. I jump. Step after step after step, jump after jump. Let him fry me, because if he doesn’t, I’m going to finish this. Not for Sheryl, not for the other rooms full of murderers. Not for little Clara, the first innocent victim in this chain of death.

I have to do this for Kezia.

I’m seven grim, agonizing steps up the spiral when I hear steps coming down to meet me. My ears are ringing again; my head is full of flashes of strange light. I stop, brace myself, and take aim. I see a shadow slide across the railing. My hands are shaking, and I’m not sure I can hit him at this distance, but I have to stop him, I have to. I take a breath. I wait. He comes closer, another turn down the spiral.

I see a shot and I take it. I miss, gouging a chunk of concrete out of the wall, and I immediately aim again. Fire again, a continuous spread. He’s stopped. Crouching. He’s shouting something. I can’t hear him, the ringing in my ears is worse than ever, but it doesn’t matter, I’m done listening.

I aim. I hold. I’m ready.

Center mass shot.

I pull the trigger. Nothing happens. The slide is locked back.

Empty.

And then I realize that the voice lost in the gunshots and the ringing isn’t Jonathan’s.

It’s Kezia’s. “Gwen, stop! Stop!” She’s leaning over the railing, face stark with shock.

“Oh God,” I say. I nearly did it. I nearly killed her.

Your choice, I can hear Jonathan whisper.

I drop the gun. I’m all wrong and I feel like I’m dying and I just want . . . I just want . . .

The white walls blur. Spin.

Kezia hurtles down the spiral toward me. She grabs me as I start to fall, and then we’re both on the floor, and she picks up the gun.

“I’ll be back,” she says, and I see the intensity, the blind focus in her eyes. “I need to make sure he’s—”

There’s a noise. A loud, rumbling noise. Mechanical. Kez stands up. I’m trying to get my breath. There’s something I need to remember, something I need to tell Kez. It’s important. But I feel like everything is watery now. Slippery. I can’t hold on to the thought.

“It’s the elevator,” she says. “Try to stand up.”

She tries to help me, but I can’t make it. I collapse, concrete cool against my face. She’s still talking, but I can’t make sense of it. Then I’m moving. She rolls me on my back, and drags me across the concrete floor toward the double doors. They’re still open, and with weird clarity, I hear the restless rush of the sea beating against the hard rock of the cliff this lighthouse stands upon.

Kez stops. She’s breathless, and she’s in pain too. I see it flash in her face, along with the sudden despair she feels. She eases me up and braces me against the wall. “No,” I try to tell her. “Don’t.” I can’t remember why I say that, but it’s important.

But she turns away from me, stands up, and faces the man who limps out of the elevator. Jonathan looks as damaged as I do.

He’s got a shotgun. He raises it toward us. “You should have checked,” he says. “I always keep a spare handcuff key in my pocket, Kezia.”

Kez steps forward, gun in hand.

Oh God. I remember now. I was trying to tell her the gun was empty. I drag the backup magazine from my pocket, but when I try to slide it to her, I miss. It skids into the shadows. Too far for her to reach.

She drops the gun and pulls the knife from her belt.

I can’t let her die for me.

“Just go, Kez,” I hear myself say. “Please. Go and live for your baby.”

The noise in my head is quieting. Everything is quieting except the steady promise of my pulsebeat. I’m still hurting, but something gives me strength.

In that silence, I hear my children whispering, You can do this, Mom. You can.

I stand up. I balance myself on one leg, drag the other. I move to stand with Kezia.

Shoulder to shoulder.

Jonathan stands there staring at me. He doesn’t scare me anymore. I’m not frightened of anything. I don’t even feel the pain so much.

“Do you know who I am now?” I ask. “And do you know who you are?” I sound steady. I am steady.

He tilts his head. Shadows fill the hollow on the side of his head.

“I do,” he says. “I finally do.”

He reverses the shotgun in one smooth motion, sticks the barrel in his mouth, and pulls the trigger. The explosion fills the lighthouse. Echoes up as the blood sprays, and what’s left of Jonathan Bruce Watson slides boneless to the floor.

Kez grabs me when I start to topple, and eases me down. She puts her arms around me and holds my back to her chest, and then we’re both sitting down. Nothing but the sound of the sea, and a faint, distant whine.

Sirens. Those are sirens.

I say, “I tried to kill you.”

“You’re a bad shot,” she says. “Thank God. Help’s coming, Gwen. Sam did it.”

I can’t take my eyes off the pitiful ruin of a man. A shell. A monster