Page 81 of Unpacking Secrets

I clung to him so tightly he probably couldn’t manage a deep breath, but his hands fisted in the back of my shirt and he buried his face in my hair. My entire body trembled in his embrace. I gave myself only the span of a few seconds to hold onto him before insisting we get moving.

A few seconds, however, was too long.

“Ah, young love. How adorable.”

The words came in a sing-song voice from a few yards away. Henry shifted to position me partially behind him as he looked toward Heller. I peered around his shoulder, unwilling to let him shield me from this. His presence had flipped a switch in my mind from panic to determination.

This monster would not get the best of us, not now that we were together in facing him down.

From this distance, Heller looked so benign, so harmless in his faded jeans and red flannel shirt, that his malicious sneer alone would have taken me aback, even if he hadn’t also been pointing a gun straight at us.

“Star-crossed lovers, aren’t you? So precious, really, but destined to part. Maybe it’s even better this way, a true homage to Melissa fucking Montgomery. Come on down, folks! Let’s have a volunteer. Which one of you should I kill first? I wanted to leave her butchered in the clearing for you, boy, but making her watch while I put a bullet in your brain might heighten the emotion a bit, know what I mean? I love the smell of fear on a woman.”

The shudder that wracked my body caused Henry to flinch in front of me.

“At least let me say goodbye,” he pleaded.

He sounded so desperate to buy at least one more moment with me, I thought my body might tremble into pieces. I knew what he was trying to do, to buy time for me to escape while he sacrificed himself.

There wasn’t a chance in hell that I would let that happen.

Heller waved the gun magnanimously. “Make it quick.”

Henry turned, taking me in his arms as he murmured, “I need you to run. Run as fast as you can toward the inn. Roberts is on his way. You have to run.”

He kissed my forehead, looking so earnest that my heart shattered, then peeled my arms from his neck even as his eyes shimmered gold beneath the sheen of tears.

I shook my head frantically, but Henry hadn’t even managed to step away from me when another voice shouted from somewhere behind us. We both turned and I almost wept with relief when I saw the ring of police officers emerging from the trees around Heller, weapons drawn and trained on the man who wanted to kill us both.

“Drop your weapon! We have you surrounded!”

Then Heller smiled—that broad, cruel smile Nan had captured so perfectly in stark charcoal strokes—and winked at Henry as he pulled the trigger.

I screamed, throwing myself against Henry’s chest as fire burst through my shoulder.

We both hit the ground hard enough to knock us breathless as a volley of gunfire broke through the quiet forest. The sound reverberated through the trees, causing a raucous exodus of birds from the branches overhead.

When silence fell once again, Henry dragged in a breath as he rolled over to look down at me.

“Juliet? Look at me. We’re okay. It’s over now.”

My face tipped toward his and I stared up at him, watching his gaze settle on my cheek, where I could tell a bruise had already formed. I felt strange, like I wasn’t present inside my own body.

“We’re alive,” I whispered.

A joyous smile split his face as he nodded, but I didn’t smile back, couldn’t quite get those muscles to move. Instead, I took in all the warmth of his expression, hoping it would fill me up enough to regain control.

“Yes, we are. We’re alive, Red.”

“My arm feels funny,” I said thickly.

My tongue became awkward in my mouth and my body seemed weighed down, like I was made of concrete. Henry’s hands grasped my arms as he scrambled to his knees. I stared up at him, thinking I must be in shock, until he squeezed my left shoulder. Dizzying spirals of pain permeated the numbness, shooting along my limbs as I cried out.

“She’s been shot!” Henry shouted, but to my ears, it sounded like his words were coming from a great distance.

The forest overhead went starkly white, then darkness swam across my vision as I slipped from consciousness.

Thesoundsthatfinallywove their way through the fog were disjointed, incoherent, tweaking at the corners of my mind from across time and distance. I struggled to open my eyes, to put names to the voices that seemed so close and yet so far away, but my eyelids were so very heavy.

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