Page 47 of The Castle (Endgame 3)
“Maybe not, but what about Gabriel? What do you think this is doing to him?”
Damon doesn’t look back at his friend. “You can’t save him, little virgin.”
My eyes narrow. Maybe Gabriel can call me that, but not anyone else. “You should get Penny out of here. She’s been through enough.”
He must figure I’m telling the truth, because he takes a step toward Penny. She backs up, but he doesn’t stop. His hand grabs her wrist. “Come,” he mutters, dragging her behind him.
His rough handling makes me wince, but it’s better that she’s gone from here. I’m not convinced that there isn’t a net hiding under the leaves, ready to trap us when we take the wrong step.
Jonathan Scott sighs with what sounds like pleasure. “I thought they would never leave. I really prefer threesomes to an orgy, don’t you? Much more intimate.”
Gabriel takes a step forward. “I’ll use a gag on you, you sick fuck.”
“Kinky, but I won’t pretend not to like it.”
“Wait.” I put my hand on Gabriel’s arm.
He looks down, half-surprised, half-frustrated. “Damon was right, you know. He doesn’t deserve your mercy.”
“Tell me why you’re doing this. I’m already here, damn it. Let me in.”
“Christ.” He stalks away before turning back. “He put a price on your head. And he’s the only one who can call it off. If I kill him now, there’s someone out there. Maybe multiple someones.”
“How will they get their money if he’s dead?”
He shrugs. “A surrogate might be holding the money. That’s my bet, but even if that weren’t the case, no one would believe he had died.”
I blink. “An assassin wouldn’t believe he could die?”
“I have a reputation,” Jonathan Scott says in a droll tone. As if it bores him. “It’s somewhat magical. Is that what you’d call it? Almost divine.”
“You’re no god,” I tell him.
“Not even for someone who reads about Zeus and Apollo? Why can’t I be one of them?”
“They were men. Ordinary men built up by stories.”
“You’re probably right. I wouldn’t have used the word ‘god,’ myself. I’m more like the bogeyman. The monster under your bed.”
The words send shards of pain through my skull, blinding light and screeching sound colliding. I stumble to the side, stunned and hurting. “No,” I whisper.
I can hear Gabriel calling me, but he’s far away. “Avery!” He sounds worried, but I can’t reassure him.
It comes to me with startling clarity, the way nightmares should never be. The way that can only happen if they’re real. The monster under my bed. He’s Jonathan Scott. Not a god. Not a shadow. A real man.
My stomach clenches hard, and I fall on my hands and knees. The world tilts around me, a spinning vortex. The only thing I can see clearly is my bedroom, with its pink ruffles and white wood furniture. The only thing I can hear is Jonathan Scott’s voice.
“Don’t tell me you forgot me. It would hurt my feelings. Monsters have feelings too, you know.”
Spasms wrench my body, the past and present colliding, a history unlocked. I would have kept it hidden forever—even from myself. And he forced the memories to the surface. “Oh God,” I gasp. “Please stop. Please.”
“What are you doing to her?” Gabriel’s voice. “Stop it right fucking now.”
“I’m not touching her,” he says, and I can hear the smirk in his voice.
That’s the truth. He’s never touched me. All those nights and he never once touched me.
Gabriel wraps his arms around me, and only then do I realize I’d been flailing. I must look insane to him, and maybe it’s the truth. That’s why Jonathan Scott brought me to this place. Not a hospital.
It’s an insane asylum.
“Stop,” I whisper.
“Tell me how to help you,” Gabriel says, gently begging. “What is he doing to you?”
The avalanche can’t be stopped now that it’s started. A small crack in the ice and the entire mountain is coming down. There’s no way for me to avoid the awful knowledge, to hide from the terrible truth of what I am—what Jonathan Scott made me.
The only thing I can possibly do is get Gabriel out of the wreckage. I can condemn him to surviving once again. It’s a cruel thing to do, but I do it with love. Is this the choice that my mother faced? To leave me in a world too dark to keep the both of us?
Gabriel’s golden eyes look luminescent through my tears.
“A doctor,” I lie, because what I really need is time. “I need Anders. He’ll know what to do.”
“I’ll carry you there,” Gabriel says urgently.
I hold out my hand, sure I’ll vomit if he touches me. “Please. No. I can’t.”
“I can’t leave you here with him.”
“It’s the only way.”
Gabriel stares at me for a long moment, before finally ducking out of the building.
Then I’m alone with the man who starred in my nightmares, who infiltrated my dreams. The very real monster under my bed—Jonathan Scott, in the flesh.
