I don’t think too hard about what will happen to me.
“You think killing me is going to fix this mess you’ve made, Jax?” I step backward, making sure to shield Jo as I do. She moves with me, shuffling backward across the grass. “You think getting revenge on me is somehow going to erase everything you’ve done?”
He glares at me, his jaw clenched tight.
“You hear those sirens?” I ask. They’re still distant, but coming closer. Someone — maybe a neighbor — must’ve called the fire department. “You’d better make up your mind, Jax. Kill me if you want. But let Josephine go.”
“No!” she cries, her voice muffled by my t-shirt.
“I don’t think you want to kill me,” I tell him bluntly, taking another step backward. “I think you just want to make me as miserable as you are. Your insides are so toxic, so full of poison, the only way to feel better is by spreading it to everyone around you.”
“Shut up!” he snarls.
“You think Ma and Pa will understand? That they’ll forgive you?” I shake my head, laughing. Taking another careful step. Jo’s fingertips dig into my shoulder blades, trying to send me some kind of message through the fabric. “They’ll disown you. You’ll be dead to them, along with me. They’ll lose both sons. Is that what you want?”
“They’ve already disowned me!”
“That’s not true. Our parents love you, Jax.” Another step. Under my feet, I feel stone instead of grass. I don’t dare look, but I know we’re only a handful of feet from the door. “Even now, after everything, they’ll find a way to forgive you. To love you. But if you kill me? If you kill Jo? What do you think will happen?”
His jaw tightens even more. He looks away for a moment, considering my words. I use the momentary distraction to shove Jo, hard, toward the boathouse. She bolts for the door. She’s nearly there when Jaxon screams, “STOP!”
He’s pointing the gun at me again, advancing on us. Jo is frozen at my side, clear in the line of fire. I vault in front of her, flattening her back against the stone wall of the boathouse. I hear her gasp as the breath leaves her lungs in a whoosh of air.
There’s fury on Jaxon’s face as he closes the gap between us. I see my death in his eyes, my gruesome fate playing out on the pinpricks of his pupils like a tiny projector screen.
He’s going to kill me.
He’s really going to kill me.
“Jo,” I say.
One word.
The only word I have time to say.
I hope it’s enough.
I hope she knows what it means.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Jaxon takes aim.
His trigger-finger tightens.
I close my eyes.
* * *
The sharp flash-bang of gunfire never comes. Instead, there’s a dull sort of boom. When my eyes snap back open, Jaxon is lying on the grass in an unconscious heap of limbs. Standing over him is none other than Tommy Mahoney. He’s holding a wrench in one hand — which I presume he’s just used to bludgeon my brother — and Jaxon’s gun in the other. His toolbox sits by his feet.
“T-Tommy?” I stutter in disbelief.
I’ve never been so shocked to see someone in my life.