Chapter 223
Kieran's POV
Drake spun around, momentarily shocked. Then he started laughing. "Well, well. The girlfriend shows up right on time. This is perfect. Now I can—"
Summer swung the pipe.
I don't think she meant to actually hit him. I think she just wanted to scare him off, to make him back away from me. But Drake was slower than he should have been—I could smell the vodka on him from across the room, and his eyes had that glassy, half-lidded look of a man who'd been drinking long before I got here. The pipe caught him square across the wrist of his knife hand with a sickening crack. He howled, the knife clattering to the ground, and he staggered sideways, cradling his hand against his chest. Summer stumbled backward, her face white with shock at what she'd just done.
"You little bitch—" Drake started toward her, but his balance was off. He swayed, his busted wrist hanging limp, and I could see his movements were sluggish, uncoordinated—the adrenaline burning through whatever alcohol had been keeping him upright.
I tried to get up, tried to put myself between them, but my legs wouldn't cooperate. Everything was spinning, and there was so much blood in my eyes I could barely see.
Then Summer screamed.
It wasn't a scream of fear. It was rage, pure and primal, and she swung that pipe again, this time catching Drake across the side of his knee. His leg buckled and he went down hard, cursing, clutching his knee with his one good hand. Summer dropped the pipe and ran toward me instead.
"Kieran, oh my god, Kieran—" Her hands were on my face, trying to wipe away the blood. "We have to go, we have to—the cops are coming, I called them, they said they'd be here in minutes—"
"Both of you," Drake growled from the floor, "are gonna regret this."
He was reaching into his pocket with his uninjured hand. I couldn't see what he was pulling out, but I could smell it—more vodka. He had a bottle of cheap vodka, and he was splashing it on the cardboard boxes stacked against the wall, on the old wooden pallets, anywhere the liquid would catch.
"You wanna play games?" he snarled, pulling out a lighter. "Let's play."
The fire caught faster than I expected. Within seconds, flames were racing up the walls, across the dry wood, filling the warehouse with smoke and heat.
Summer was pulling at me, trying to get me to stand. "Come on, please, Kieran, we have to move—"
Drake was on his feet now, unsteady but upright, the knife back in his good hand. He was between us and the door, and his eyes had that glassy, unfocused look that meant he was past reason, past fear. He was just pure rage now, pure destruction.
"If I can't have my family," he said, "nobody can."
The warehouse door crashed open again. This time it was police—two uniforms, flashlights cutting through the smoke. Summer's call had brought them here, and they'd arrived just in time.
"Police! Drop the weapon!"
Drake didn't even look at them. His eyes were fixed on me, on Summer clutching my arm. I saw him make the decision, saw his grip tighten on the knife as he started toward us.
"Shots fired! Shots fired!"
The sound of gunfire in an enclosed space is deafening. Three shots, close together. Drake went down like a puppet with cut strings, the knife clattering across the concrete floor.
After that, everything became a blur of smoke and sirens and Summer's voice in my ear, saying my name over and over again like a prayer. Firefighters appeared, then EMTs, and someone was trying to pull Summer away from me but she wouldn't let go.
"Save her first," I heard myself saying, even though I wasn't sure who I was talking to or what I was trying to save her from. "Please, save her first."
The last thing I remember before everything went dark was Summer's face above mine, tears cutting clean tracks through the soot on her cheeks, and the thought that at least she was safe. At least I'd kept her safe.
Even if I couldn't keep myself from becoming exactly what I'd always feared—my father's son, standing in a burning warehouse, covered in blood that was partially my own.