Chapter 36: Final Gaze
Her body was a statue of ice but her eyes were rivers of flowing tears.
They streamed down her face a desperate silent plea. Don’t come out Adam. Run. Get away from here. The message was as clear as any shouted warning. It was a language spoken in the currency of pure undiluted terror.
Adam saw her tears. He understood their meaning. He had tried so hard to keep her out of this to protect her from the darkness that clung to him like a second skin. But he had failed. He had brought the reapers to her doorstep.
And now they were using her as a shield using her life as a bargaining chip for his own. He finally accepted the crushing weight of his defeat. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t hide. He couldn’t let them kill her because of him.
He looked at her. He met her tear-filled gaze across the short distance that separated them. A small sad smile touched his lips. It was a smile of resignation of apology of a final bittersweet farewell. He stepped out from behind the wall into the open corridor exposing himself completely.
"Don’t worry," he said his voice soft his smile unwavering.
He never got to finish the sentence.
The sharp spitting sound of the silenced pistol echoed in the quiet house. A single bullet crossed the corridor in an instant. It struck him directly in the forehead.
The world dissolved into a flash of white. But in that last fleeting microsecond of his consciousness he saw something else. He saw one of the other masked men raise his pistol and fire at Sophia.
He saw her fall.