CHAPTER 7: A DEADWEIGHT FALL
I blinked. Her blood was warm, tacky on my palms, snapping me back to the present. She slumped to her knees, shoulders barely lifting with each fragile breath.
My body turned to cement, heartbeat pounding louder than the world around me.
She’d once pulled me from chaos—hands steady where mine shook.
Now, those same hands shivered in a pool of blood spilling from the wound I’d inflicted.
Her eyes glazed over—dull, sickly gray.
Skin ghostly pale.
Blood soaked deeper into her clothes.
I gasped, lunging closer, ripping a strip from my shirt to press against the wound—
But it only bled faster. Darker.
“I’m sorry,” I choked, my voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean—”
My throat closed up.
“Help! Somebody, please!”
My hands shook violently, fingers slipping against her blood-slick skin as I struggled to hold her.
A layer of her clothing tore free, dropping to the ground as I pulled her into my arms.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
It shattered me.
“No… no, no—”
My voice cracked.
“Stay with me.”
Somewhere in the scramble, my shirt split open.
Her gaze dropped. My eyes followed—my chest.
Her fingers trembled as they hovered, ghosting over the mole on my skin—a crescent-shaped blotch I’d never thought twice about.
Her lips parted, breath rattling in her chest.
“Za…yn…”
My name shredded on her tongue, a strained whisper. Her gaze flickered, tears sliding sideways to my wrist.
“I couldn’t pro…tect you.
You’re my twin.”
Everything stopped.
My head reeled, snapping back and forth in disbelief.
She sagged heavier in my arms, her words falling in short, fading bursts.
“They’ll hunt you…” she rasped, breath catching. “No escape… from Blackcroft.”
A cough wracked her throat.
“Not Spain… not even Italy…”
Her eyes—lifeless pools—locked with mine.
Her rough fingers curled around the crescent on my chest, trembling like she was holding on to the last truth she had left.
Her lips parted.
“No matter what you do…” she gasped, choking on her own breath,
“Run. Hide. Flee.”
Her head lolled. Her breaths grew thinner—wheezing out like smoke on a dying ember.
My voice burned in my throat like bleach to my gut.
I turned toward the door.
My chest seized. My lungs refused to fill.
“Stay!” I shouted.
The word bled from my throat.
I slapped her cheeks—brisk, desperate—the sound sinking like poison in my skull.
Each breath grew shallower.
Her eyes flared, clawing at the last of her fading strength.
Her shivering fingers dug into my arm as I fought to lift her, staggering toward the exit.
“Help!” I screamed, my voice cracked, trailing off.
A deep thud rattled the walls.
I stood there, my legs rooted to the ground.
Suddenly—bang!
A deafening blast ripped through the silence.
My heart skipped.
Breath trapped beneath my ribs.
Footsteps followed—too many. Too close.
Thunder roared in the distance, lights flickering on and off.
My heavy eyelids pressed together.
Without warning, the door slammed open.
A harsh red beam sliced through the stuttering dark, stabbing into my eyes.
“Don’t move.”
The voice echoed—rough, hoarse.
Four masked figures blurred into view, armed, circling like wolves.
One stepped forward—a jagged scar running from his jaw to his ear.
His lip curled, a gun tight in his grip.
“The Butcher’s Worm.
Helpless now…”
They glanced at each other.
One tilted his head, knife grazing his jaw, eyes unreadable—like he was weighing something.
My heart thudded wild.
Were they deciding?
The knot in my stomach loosened—then froze.
Clank.
Metal bit the silence.
“Finish the job.”
A voice rang like iron—hard and unforgiving.
Time slowed.
My pulse counted the seconds she had left.
Gunmetal scraped—a sharp crack.
A shot—smoke hissing from the barrel’s mouth as blood sprayed across my face.
She twitched once.
Just once.
A single bead—blood and tear—slid from the corner of her eye.
A gasp, wet and broken, rattled from her throat.
Her whole body sagged limp, her hand slipping boneless from my grasp, crashing from my arms with a deadweight slump that swallowed the world.
And for a moment, I couldn’t tell which sound was hers or mine.
My chest cinched tight, squeezing the air from my lungs.
“No. You…”
I muttered through clenched, chattering teeth.
Laughter echoed—barbed, masked, muffled.
I dropped to my knees, staring up at their half-covered faces.
“You killed her.”
One voice spat the words like venom.
And somehow, they tasted bitter in my mouth.
“No! No!”
My voice cracked.
My head shook wildly.
“No, you—you pulled the trigger!
You did it! You…”
The words split on my tongue.
A guttural cry tore from my throat, chest heaving at the sight of the gun barrel pressed against my temple—vision blurring at the cold, final click.
A cold sweat broke across my skin.
Tears carved hot paths down my cheeks.
Another gunshot cracked.
Darkness rushed in—too fast.
Blank.
Black.
The last thing I heard was blood hitting the ground.
I prayed it wasn’t mine.