In The End Box Set | Books 1-3 Stevens, GJ (story books to read TXT) 📖

no longer see the detail in Alex’s face, the rage pumping blood so fast in my head.

I took another step back. “Toni rescued me, but then turned me over to that bitch. I killed her trying to escape. It was an accident, but it was my finger pulling the trigger,” I said, raising my palms out towards him. “Does that deserve a fucking Oscar?”

Part of me wanted him to smile. Part of me wanted him to give me a way out, to give a release to my rage.

His smile came and he shook his head as he saw the gun in my hand as it raised. He saw it the same time I did. He saw it as I realised I’d picked its weight from the table when I’d passed to step forward. The smile fell with each angle of the gun rising in his direction.

“If this is a performance, if this is a show, if this is entertainment, this bullet won't kill you.”

I raised my eyebrows, his smile no longer there, but still he couldn’t help flinching a look around the room as with disbelief I pulled the trigger.

61

The candles stopped flickering. The room fell silent. Dust and smoke rained between us.

Past the barrel I watched Alex standing straight like a statue. His face fixed. Eyes staring. Open-mouthed.

Shaking, I let the gun drop and he bent his neck towards his chest. Trying to someway rationalise what I’d just done, I watched candlelight dance across his shirt, his hand shadowing the light as he scoured for a break in the cloth.

Pulling his shirt high, I saw the pale of his flat and well-defined stomach and flash of a black bra as he swept his hands across his chest, looking for holes that weren’t there.

Alex was a woman. How could I have been so blind?

She looked up and my brain caught up from the distraction. Alex watched as I flicked my eyes over her shoulder, trying to regain the anger that had caused me to take the shot.

She twisted as her shirt dropped back down, following my gaze to the wall behind.

Before I could finish questioning how I could have been so blind, how I could have missed the pitch of her voice, or the lack of an Adam’s apple, air pulled deep in a gasp and she stared into the cracked plaster as high as her head, her view fixing down the round hole in the centre.

It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d have fallen to her knees. I was ready to catch her head as she turned, but instead she twisted, standing like a statue with her mouth held wide.

“Still think it’s a fucking joke?” I said, my eyebrows raised as I fidgeted the gun in my grip. The words had less behind them than I’d expected.

Alex shook her head, eyes flicking to my hand.

“You almost killed me,” she said, all the colour gone from her voice as she raised her head.

“I never almost do anything,” I replied, but as I made a show of placing the gun on the tabletop, I tried to push away the horror of what I’d done.

I let the air hang with silence, watching the sharp contours of her face in the flickering orange light, looking at her as if the first time. Her soft skin unblemished with stubble. The purse of her lips. Despite the short hair and her clothes, it was so obvious now.

She took at least a minute to move; any longer and I was ready to walk out of the door, the anger returning as the shock of my actions subsided. If she came with me, she’d see so much worse by the end of the day.

Moving to the sink, Alex leant against the metal basin, letting water from the tap dribble into the bowl before pushing another glass from the draining board and holding it until it overflowed.

Leaving her in peace, I waited for the glass to finish; waited for her turn before I spoke.

“I’m sorry but you need to know this is real. The dead walk the streets, infecting more each minute. Tomorrow it will be so much worse, people will wake to the horror and it will overcome them.”

She turned back, following my gaze. She’d seen something out there, I’d seen it too. Fear forced her back from the window.

“There are people out there trying to help. The military. The police, but others will use this as an excuse.”

White as a sheet, she turned back towards me, but flinched to the window at the sound of a glass bottle rolling along the road.

“And that’s not the worst,” I said, raising my eyebrows. I didn’t finish my words and she didn’t ask what I’d meant.

Taking a deep breath and swallowing hard, she was about to speak, but stopped herself as she turned, pushing the glass under the tap until water rolled over her fingers.

“What are you trying to do?” she said once she’d gulped the water down.

I let a smile rise in the corner of my mouth.

“I’m trying to let everyone know. It’s the biggest story in history, but unless they see it coming down the road, they'll have no chance. They won’t be prepared.”

She stared on, her gaze turning down to the gun.

“So why do you need that?” Alex said, her voice soft and slow.

“I need to survive,” I replied, my gaze following hers. “I won’t give a shit when I’m dead and not in control.”

“And why do you need me?”

“I need someone to help me get my cameras back.” She raised her eyebrows before letting them fall. “I had to leave them behind.”

“Why me?”

“I thought you had big balls,” I said, but immediately realised my mistake and she turned her head to the side, squinting. “I thought