Page 106 of Pride
He laughed, then shook his head and grunted as more blood flew from his mouth and poured down his face.
“The first one was understandable,” he managed to splutter, “But the second was a fucking liberty.” He straightened up to face me, grinning with his blood-stained teeth, making him look like a lunatic, as he sneered, “You won’t get to do that a third time.”
“You’re jealous,” I seethed. “Jealous that I’m building a life, creating a future for myself.”
He stepped towards me and his fake smile disappeared instantly.
“A future that doesn’t include me.” He took a few deep breaths, staring right into my eyes before adding, “She doesn’t get to have the happy ending. I do.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I leered at him, conscious of the fact that Emma was still tied up, scared out of her mind on the forest floor. Whatever he wanted her to see, wasn’t going to happen.
“I want to perform my final piece... tonight... with you.” He nodded to where Emma sat, her eyes filled with tears, herbreaths laboured from trying to free herself as she watched us. “She doesn’t even factor as a footnote in our story. That’s why I wanted her gone. But if she has to stay and watch, then so be it. She can be our eyewitness for how truly tragic and beautiful the performance is.”
“You’re fucking insane,” I jeered.
“And why is that?” he tilted his head, that demonic grin back on his bloody face.
I don’t know how it happened.
Maybe I got distracted by Emma, writhing on the floor, trying to loosen her ankle ties as she grunted from the effort.
Or perhaps it was the red light from the video blinking at me from over his shoulder that caught my attention for a split second, reminding me that countless perverts were watching us right now.
Whatever it was, it gave him a golden opportunity to kick out and knock the pistol right out of my hand.
I lunged forward, making a grab for it from the floor, but he kicked it into the undergrowth and then turned his gun on me.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
EMMA
It was all going so fucking wrong.
Alex’s gun had been knocked out of his hand, and now Arran had the upper hand. His gun was pointed right at Alex as they stared each other down. I felt sick.
I was still forcing my legs to move, bending my knees, trying anything I could to loosen the tape around my ankles. My wrists were cut and bleeding from pulling and yanking on the cable tie. But nothing was working. Hope was fading pretty fucking fast.
“Sit,” Arran barked, and Alex ignored him. But Arran stepped closer to him, pressing his gun against Alex’s forehead as he repeated more forcefully, “Sit.”
Reluctantly, Alex got on his knees, then down on the floor to sit.
Arran took a step back and picked up a fallen branch. “Now I have your attention, I can explain my concept.”
He started to kick away the leaves and twigs, then drew a circle in the soil with the stick he was holding.
“This performance is called Yin and Yang,” he announced proudly. He drew a curved line to dissect the circle he’d drawn, turning it into the symbol for Yin and Yang. “Because that’s what we are,” he glanced at Alex, and when he got noresponse, he shrugged and carried on. “Two interconnecting forces that balance each other out. One can’t work without the other. We’re a self-perpetuating cycle.” He started to draw the smaller circle inside each section of Yin and Yang on the forest floor, completing the design. “When one is stronger, the other is always there, the silent support in the background, and vice versa. Like night and day, dark and light, moon and sun, Alex and Arran. You can’t have one without the other.”
“And?” Alex sneered, quickly glancing over at me, then back at his brother. “What the fuck does any of that mean?”
“It means when you were born, so was I. And if you die, I die.”
“A murder, suicide,” Alex said with scorn. “I’d have expected better from you.”
I knew he was goading him to try and buy us time. But our time was running out, and Alex didn’t have a weapon.
“And you will get better from me,” Arran replied proudly, pointing the stick at the Yin and Yang image. “We were created as Yin and Yang. We lived in our mother’s womb that way, the perfect puzzle pieces fitted together. And now, we’re going to leave the world in the exact same way, only she has no control this time. She isn’t here. She can’t pull us apart. No one can.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed in disgust at his brother. “You’re a fucking mad man.”
