Chapter 156 Burn in hell

Chapter 156 Burn in hell
Tegan

The cold, metallic barrels of the submachine guns lowered in a fraction of a second as their rigid siege formation dissolved. The armed bottleneck was broken.

The raw, terrifying leverage of the binder prongs I had pressed against the Dean’s neck had shattered his coup in a single heartbeat. He was terrified out of his mind, weeping like a baby on the hard floorboards. So much for a man that wants to make history through mass murder. What a joke.

I didn't release my grip on his silver hair just yet. My posture remained razor-sharp, my spine perfectly straight as I stood over his broken body, completely commanding the elevated DJ stage.

Down in the packed sand, Hayes and Jax had already completely handled the perimeter. The tactical operators were utterly useless now, groaning in the wet sand, their weapons scattered across the shoreline.

Hayes stood at the bottom of the stage steps, his massive 6'4" frame a towering wall of protective iron. His dark eyes were locked onto me, his chest rising and falling heavily under his torn white suit jacket. He didn't leave my side for a single second. He was ready to tear anyone apart who even breathed in my direction, but he kept his distance, letting me hold the stage and finish this. While Jax went to get help.

I slowly let go of Garrison’s silver hair, taking a slow, unyielding step back from his weeping frame. I reached down into the debris near the overturned catering tables, my fingers wrapping around the lighter he had dropped during our struggle. I looked down at him, my expression completely dead.

"I lied, Mr. Garrison," I said into the microphone, my voice a quiet, chilling register that cut through the entire campus broadcast system.

Garrison flinched, his single open eye widening in sudden panic as he stared up at the lighter in my hand. He coughed up a splash of dark crimson, his shattered knee bent completely sideways against the floorboards. "What...what did you say, you little bitch?"

"I said I lied about the mist being food coloring," I murmured, a slow, incredibly arrogant smile pulling at the corners of my lips.

"The vapor from the helicopter is completely active. If a single spark catches right now, this entire beach explodes into a wall of fire. Everyone dies. We all burn to ash together."

Garrison’s face went completely, violently dry. The raw terror of realization crashed over his mind. He looked up at the dark sky, then looked back at the lighter in my hand. His breathing turned into a series of sharp, panicked gasps.

"And here is the best part," I whispered, leaning closer so the microphone picked up every single breath.

"Before I walked up here, I turned on the main campus broadcast. Your little villain speech? Your confession about mass murder? It was live-streamed to every single student, faculty member, and wealthy shareholder on the grid. Your reputation is dead. Your legacy is wiped out. You have absolutely nothing left. Even if you walk off this beach alive, you are spending the rest of your life in a maximum-security cage."

"No... no! Tegan, please! Don't do it!" Garrison shrieked, his voice a pathetic, high-pitched whine as he tried to crawl backward on his elbows.

He was completely trapped behind the mahogany podium, his broken leg dragging uselessly behind him. "If you light that, you'll kill yourself! You'll kill your baby! You'll kill Hayes! Put it down! Put the fucking flame down!"

I didn't lower it. Instead, I gripped the striking cap. I held it right above my chest, looking down at him with an expression of total, chilling indifference. I acted like a woman who had absolutely nothing left to lose. I acted like a psycho who was ready to blow up the entire world just to take him out.

"You wanted to make history tonight, Dean," I said coldly, my voice steady, completely matching the cold, unyielding energy inside my chest.

"You wanted a grand finale. Let's give the audience exactly what they paid for. Let's go out in a blaze of glory."

"Don't! I beg you, don't!" Garrison screamed, completely losing his sanity. The proud, arrogant Dean of Whitlock University was entirely broken. Tears of pure terror poured down his bloody face as he stared at my thumbs resting on the ignition cap.

I looked down at Garrison one last time. He was a pathetic, broken shell of a man. He had lost his freedom, his career, his power, and his dignity in front of the entire campus.

Slowly, deliberately, I lowered the flare. I didn't strike the cap. I hadn't spent a single second intending to hurt my baby or Hayes. I had just played the ultimate game of chicken, and the Dean had blinked first.

I leaned down close to his ear, the microphone picking up my final, ice-cold whisper. "I’d tell you to burn in hell, Mr. Garrison," my voice dropped into a deadpan finality that rattled straight into his bones. "But it looks like you’re already there."

With disdain, I tossed the unlit, useless lighter into the dark surf line, watching it splash into the waves. I turned my back on his pathetic sobbing, adjusting the heavy silk of my white gown as I turned to walk away from the stage.

But as I took my first step toward the stairs, a sudden, maddened animal shriek tore from Garrison’s throat behind me.

"Diiie, you little bitch!" he cried out, his voice exploding with pure, unhinged malice.

The desperate scream made me instantly halt. I turned my head, watching the drama happen in slow motion.

He was trying to launch his body forward to stab me in the back. But his mind was completely broken by panic, and he completely miscalculated the environment.

As he tried to violently lunge forward on his hands and knees, his shattered knee joint completely buckled sideways under his weight. At the exact same microsecond, his hand hit the floorboards, which were slick and soaked with high-proof luxury alcohol and broken glass from the catering table he had crashed into earlier.

His grip slipped violently on the wet wood. His arm shot out from under him, and he completely lost control. The momentum of his own heavier frame sent him crashing face-first into the deck, driving the small dagger he was holding directly and deeply into his own upper thigh.

A sharp, piercing shriek of agony echoed through the microphone as Garrison pinned himself to his own stage. He collapsed onto his side, weeping hysterically, clutching his freshly stabbed leg while blood quickly stained his coat. Well, karma is a bitch, I guess she just had her fun with him.

From the distance across the private island ferry docks, the high-pitched, wailing sirens of the mainland SWAT team and federal police cruisers finally broke through the night air.

Their bright searchlights cut through the dark water, locking onto the stage and capturing his pathetic, self-inflicted defeat for the whole world to see.

I didn't even look back at him again. I stepped down the side stairs toward the sand, where Hayes’s massive arms instantly wrapped around my waist. He yanked my body against his rigid chest, burying his face into my dark hair, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe.