Page 60 of Keep Me Safe
A woman in the crowd screamed.
One of the gunmen had pulled a blonde from the crowd and examined her critically. The gun was shoved in her face and the loud crack of it going off was just audible over the burning carnage around us.
The woman collapsed and was shoved away, lifeless, as people screamed.
My heart pounded like a relentless hammer against an anvil. There was no choice to be made.
I knew how this was going to play out. Laurel wouldn’t let another person die in her place. She’d go to this team of gunmen, and they’d either kill her now or take her. And Juric would eventually kill her, or even worse, he’d kill the child inside of her.
I couldn’t have children, and I’d be damned if I’d let someone take that from my sister. Laurel and Jason deserved their happiness, had earned it with all they’d survived.
My sister struggled against Jason’s hold. Her hands clawed at his arms to release her, and his lips were moving, probably pleading with her to stay quiet. So the men wouldn’t take her.
I wouldn’t let that happen any more than he would. And I had something that might actually prevent it. I could give them a chance to escape. I owed Laurel after what I’d said to her that dark afternoon after our mother’s death. Those hurtful, untrue words had driven my sister away for six long years.
“Look at me,” I whispered to Shawn, whose focus was on the gunman who had just killed the blonde woman. His gaze turned to me, and it brimmed with chaos.
I couldn’t go to my death without him knowing.
“I told you I wasn’t capable of giving you what you wanted.Everything.” My voice broke on the word. “You were proving me wrong.”
It only added to the chaos in his eyes, and then there was a different horrified scream as another woman was plucked from the ground.
Time was slipping away. I couldn’t waste any more of it saying goodbye.
I gave a strangled cry before letting go of his hand and launched to my feet. This time I moved out of his reach.
“Stop!” I yelled. “I’m Laurel Hayward.”
22
KARA
Breath was frozenin my lungs as I took a step toward the gunman.
The man had thick eyebrows and fat lips that turned down in a sneer as he examined me. I could feel every pair of eyes in the crowd on me as I shuffled forward on the ridiculous shoes. I kept my gaze fixed on the gunman when I passed Jason and Laurel, not wanting to give anything away.
Plus, it would be too much to handle, too emotional. My last memory would not be of my sister’s face streaked with fear.
When I reached the man who seemed to be the leader, the one who had jumped on the table and triggered the explosion, he hopped down and sauntered up to me.
This man was definitely not Juric.
The device used to set off the explosions was a phone, still clutched in his hand. On the tiny screen I could see a picture of Laurel, where she looked drugged. Thank God we looked alike and I’d continued to color my hair blonde even when it had begun to darken in college. I was blonder than Laurel was now, anyway.
The gunman was skeptical. I looked like Laurel, but it wasn’t like we were twins.
“Who are you?” His accent wasn’t thick, but the gravity of everything made thought difficult and I struggled to process his question.
“Laurel Hayward.”
He pressed a button on the phone and brought it to his ear, uttering a few words in a language I didn’t recognize. The man nodded, satisfied with whatever the person on the other line said, and pocketed the phone.
“Give me your hands,” he ordered.
“Why?”
“He said you’d put up a fight.”
