Page 154 of Monstrous Urges
A half-forgotten dream.
An imprint of a memory.
It’s not me.
I’m not Annika.
I’m not Drazen’s wife.
“Her family, Drazen!” Milos screams. “Her fucking family betrayed?—”
“We were all betrayed!” Drazen roars back. “You! Me! Your father! My father and my family! Her and her family!!”
He keeps his hand on the rifle trigger, his eye to the sights, and reaches into his pocket with his other hand and yanks his phone out to hold it high.
“I have proof, Milos! Vadik played us all! He was in hot water with the Iron Table. They were catching on to his backstabbing. With the union of my family and hers, and with Yelizaveta being Mihajlo’s godmother, he was worried about his seat!” Drazen shakes the phone in his hand. “I have hard evidence, Milos!” he pleads.
“My father…” Milos chokes. “He lived through so fucking much! What they did to my sister! To my mother! He survived all of it, and served your father his entire life?—”
“Milos—!”
“And then died because of her! Her family!”
“No!” Drazen roars. “No, Milos! The attack…that was Vadik! Those were his men, made to look like her father’s to make it look like a war between my family and hers. Vadik’s men came for her family and slaughtered her parents the same night, pretending to be my father’s men.”
My throat squeezes closed.
The acrid smell of smoke fills my nostrils.
The cracking of timber beams. The screams. The staccato tap-tap-tap of gunfire.
The fire everywhere, singeing my hair and blistering my fingers as I scramble to open a door.
The boom I feel in my very soul as the whole world goes end over end. The window shattering as I fly through it, punched out into the night in a belching hail of blood, glass, and fire.
Oh God…
“Milos!!”
Drazen’s voice grabs my mind by the collar and yanks it back from the darkness of memory.
Milos is shaking as he holds the detonator up high.
“Don’t do this, Milos!” Drazen roars.
“I…I have to,” Milos whispers. “I?—”
“Don’t make me do it!” Drazen hisses. “Don’t you fucking make kill you.”
Milos smiles weakly. “We do what we must, my brother. You choose your path.”
He smiles a cold, faraway, resigned smile.
“I’ve chosen mine?—”
The harsh crack of the rifle splits the night. The impact of Drazen’s bullet slams Milos’ body backward. I scream as the detonator falls from his hand as his body goes tumbling backward to topple onto the pavement stretching over the bridge.
Drazen is running to me before the body even lands. He throws the rifle away, his eyes blazing with madness as he charges over. I sob when he gets to me, his arms circling my body as he buries his face in my neck.