“O’Sullivan killed your family!” Like he killed mine.
He nods, his expression hardening, before he freezes.
Footsteps.
“Seamus,” I croak in terror. “He’ll kill us.”
“I’ll deal with him.”
He says it with a dangerous confidence that I find myself daring to believe in.
“Is this real, Frankie? Are you real? I told myself that dreams don’t happen in the middle of nightmares”
“Then, let’s make it real,” he says, gritting his jaw. “You and me. I can’t predict the future, Ada, but I can make the present better. I can get you away from him if you’ll let me. I know that bastard isn’t your real father—”
“But how do I know?” I clutch at his arms, hating myself for this sudden burst of doubt. “How do I know you’re not just using me to hurt him?”
He takes my face between his hands again. “Because I saw you. The night my family died. I was sitting in a car outside your house, and I watched you dancing in your bedroom. You were the only light in the dark. You made me fucking believe, Ada... Believe that there was more than my pain and my grief and my bitterness.” He swipes the pad of his thumb across my cheeks. “I swear to you, right now—in this fucking library—I will do everything I can to make you feel the same way.”
His words are like armour spun from gold. They’re so perfect, I could choke on them. “But he’ll never let me go... Neither him, nor Ki—”
“Do you trust me?”
I nod, so certain suddenly of something so reckless.
“Do you believe in fate?”
“I-I think so.”
“Life threw us together, Ada, but I’m not resisting, and neither are you. That’s got to mean something, right?”
The footsteps are nearly upon us.
“Play along,” he hisses, yanking me to my feet. “But fucking run when I tell you to.”
“Time’s up…” Seamus’s words trail off when he sees Frankie standing behind me. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”
“A shared appreciation for Alexandre Dumas.”
“Do I know you?” My bodyguard’s eyes narrow as he tries to place him. Saving up every detail to share with O’Sullivan later. “Yeah, I think I do… You’re the skank by the ATM last week waiting for a scam.”
Frankie steps forward, positioning himself between Seamus and me. “Raiding ATMs is old school these days.” As he says it, I watch his hand creep into the back pocket of his jeans and pull out a flick knife.
I take a shaky sidestep, caught up in a net of hope and fear again.
“Why’s that?” Seamus spits out his gum and cracks his knuckles. “And I’d get the fuck away from her if I were you. You don’t want to know what happened to the last boy who tried to make friends with her.”
“I was thinking of trying armed robbery...” Frankie flips the blade. “And then I realised I had a better talent.”
Seamus’s brows lift, as if to say, “let’s be having it.”
“Killing O’Sullivan scum like you.” With this, he lunges at him, driving his knife deep into his stomach. Hitting him with such force that they tumble backwards into the bookshelves with a loud crash.
“Ada, run!” he yells, but I’m too mesmerised by the brutal rise and fall of his knife as Seamus’s midriff quickly dissolves into a river of red and gore. He doesn’t stand a chance, and I don’t want him to have one. My body aches from all the beatings I’ve received because of his lies.
Frankie staggers back, the dying man’s gun in one hand, his other so red with blood it’s hard to tell where his fingers end, and his knife begins.
“Why the hell didn’t you run?” he demands.
“I’m not leaving without you,” I say quietly, and something burns bright and hot between us.
“Do you fuckheads have any idea what you’ve done?” Seamus splutters.
“Catching your boss’s attention.” Lifting the gun, Frankie fires one round between his eyes, the sound echoing like thunder around the empty library. Sliding the bloody knife back into his jeans’ pocket, he shoves the gun inside his jacket and grabs my hand. “Time to go.”
If he has a plan, he doesn’t share it. This wasn’t a subtle kill. He didn’t come here with the intention of murder, but it’s snowballed out of control anyway.
As we reach the front door, Frankie spins me around to face him.
“Wait.”
Bringing me in close, he rests his forehead against mine until we’re breathing in each other’s breaths and body heat. This is more than the average madness, I think wildly. This is our madness—to build pyres around and worship.
“They’ll kill us.”
“Let them come for us.” He brushes his lips against mine, barely touching me, but enough to ricochet sensations all over my body. “No regrets?”
He says it like it’s a question, but I answer with a firm affirmation.
“No regrets.”
And there never will be.
CHAPTER 10
FRANKIE
The second we step outside we’re hit by a bullet of a different kind.
“What the fuck, Frankie!” Aiden appears out of nowhere, his eyes darting up and down the street. “Was that a gunshot I heard?”
“Did you follow me, you little punk?” Grabbing him by the front of his T-shirt, I pin him against the wall of the library, adrenaline still spiking in my veins.
He glances down at the blood dripping from my hand and staining his clothes. “What did you do, brother?” he mutters, looking scared shitless for the first time ever. Up until now, he’s only played at being a criminal—trying it on like a bad Halloween costume when it suits. This is his first confrontation with the hard stuff.
I made a choice, Aiden. A big fucking choice with big adult consequences.
I was losing her. Whatever Ada has endured this week has pushed her to her limits. I saw it in her face. Her eyes were sunken and haunted. There was a new resignation in her that ripped a hole in my plans.
“Get out of here, Aiden,” I say, loosening my grip. “The cops will be here any minute. When they come looking for me, tell them you haven’t seen me for weeks. Tell mum and dad it’s a misunderstanding.”
“Yeah, but it’s not though, is it?” He glances at Ada, who’s quaking in my shadow, her beautiful face smeared with blood too.
“Raven—”
“I thought the worst thing you could catch from a library was a bad case of intellect.” He offers me a weak smile, and I drop his T-shirt with a curse. “Is she worth it?”
Worth killing for. Worth dying for. Worth all of it.
I can’t explain it. Not to him. All the words in the world couldn’t do it justice.
Ada and I are more than a passing boy-girl glance or a teenage crush. It goes right back to the beginning. To a past he knows nothing about. To a war that started long before our time. To more of those consequences that are wrapped around our necks like snakes.
The sound of sirens rise up in the distance.