Page 85 of Catch My Fall

I kick out at his injured leg and he roars in pain. I shove against his chest and he stumbles backwards onto the bed.

Reaching for the gun at my feet with trembling hands, I release the safety and aim it at the man. His eyes go wide, his lips curling into a snarl as I pull the trigger, the bullet piercing his neck.

His body falls back against the mattress, his eyes wide as his body writhes, fighting for air as blood gushes from his neck like a fountain, staining the crisp white sheets beneath him. It only takes less than a minute for his body to fall still, his eyes lifeless as they stare up at the ceiling.

I slip to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest. My shoulders begin to shake as tears well in my eyes.

I killed a man.

Despite what just happened in the past few minutes, my brain struggles to comprehend those words.

I killed him and what’s even worse, I don’t feel bad. Not even a little bit.

Does that make me a bad person?

I can feel a panic attack looming, so I take in a deep gulp of air before slowly expelling it from my lungs, repeating the technique over and over until my heart begins to steady.

He would’ve killed me first, I remind myself.

Every muscles in my body turns lax. The strength that was there before has vanished, the adrenaline slowly leaving my system and all I want to do is curl up and go to sleep.

I’m crashing.

There’s an alarm going off in the house but with the blood still whooshing through my ears, the sound is faint, it sounds so far away.

My head snaps up when I hear a familiar voice calling my name.

“Sierra!” Alec calls from somewhere below.

“Alec?”

“Sierra!” he shouts again, his voice panicked.

I clamber to my feet and rush out of the room. I take the stairs two at a time, stepping over a man’s body who’s slumped up against the bannister, noticing the bullet hole square between his eyes.

My foot slips when a wall of heat hits me from the side and it’s then I notice flames billowing out from the kitchen. The entire ground floor is bathed in the warm glow of the fire, the air stifling and hazy with smoke making it hard to breathe. It’s like being suffocated.

The smoke alarm blares as flames as high as the ceiling eat everything in their path. With the entire house open plan, the fire is spreading quickly, so quick that it won’t be long before it takes the entire house.

I have no idea how it started, but with the backdoor completely engulfed in flames, it only leaves one other exit.

“Sierra!” I whirl around to find Alec charging towards me.

His clothes are covered in blood and dirt. He’s limping, but I don’t have time to ask what happened because he slams into me, wrapping me in his arms and burying his face in my neck. He smells of smoke and sweat. “Thank fuck. Are you okay?”

I nod, holding him tighter. “Are you? You’re hurt!” I exclaim, noticing the bloodstain on his shirt on the right side of his abdomen.

“Don’t worry about me. We need to get out of here, princess. Now.” He releases me and takes my hand, pulling me through the huge house until we see the front door.

The fire has taken hold of the dining room, the fabric curtains that hang against the window completely taken by the flames as the fabric melts like butter.

Directly beside the window is the front door—Our only chance of escape.

The glass smashes, the clean, cool air from outside acting like gasoline that only feeds the flames and makes them more aggressive.

I cough against the smoke that clogs up my lungs, each breath becoming more and more laboured with every intake.

Something creaks above us and before I can register what’s happening, Alec’s hand is around my arm and drags me with him, the two of us falling to the ground as one of the beams from the ceiling comes crashing down, narrowly missing us.