Chapter 243 - Two Hundred And Forty Three
(Two months later...)
Splat...
The sickening sound echoed in the oppressive silence of the dimly lit chamber. A body, heavy and lifeless, crumpled to the ground, a dark stain blooming rapidly on the grey flagstones, more blood splattering against the cold, damp wall, dripping in thick, straight trails.
Elias laid motionless, his neck slit open and his blood flowed like a river on the floor.
Suzy stood trembling, not from cold, but from a terror mixed with a horrifying sense of a deed done. Her belly, round and prominent beneath her stained nightgown – it had been two months since the kidnapping, two months of healing and the undeniable growth of the new life within her – felt heavy, a vulnerable burden.
In her hand, impossibly, she gripped Ryan’s sword, its polished steel dark and slick, dripping with Elias’s blood. Her own face was splashed with crimson, warm and sticky. She looked ahead, her eyes wide with horror, at the figure standing a few feet away.
Byron.
She pointed the heavy blade at him, her arm shaking with the effort, with the terror. He, in turn, leveled a pistol directly at her heart, his hands steady on the trigger, the Blackwood ring absorbing the moonlight, his stance unwavering, a chilling, almost serene smile playing on his lips. In the edge of her vision, a beloved form lay still and broken on the floor near the far wall. Ryan. Her Ryan. Dead. A single, dark bullet hole marred his perfect forehead. The sight was a physical blow, stealing the air from her lungs, a pain so profound it eclipsed all else.
"I have been waiting for this moment, Cassandra," Byron said, his voice smooth as silk, that chilling smile never faltering. "For you to finally see the futility of it all."
Tears streamed down Suzy’s face, hot and silent. No words came, no sound escaped her constricted throat, only the ragged tearing of her breath. She wanted to scream, to rage, to fall beside Ryan, but her feet were rooted to the bloodied floor, the sword an unbearable weight in her hand.
Byron calmly, deliberately, began to reload his pistol, the metallic clicks echoing like hammer blows in the dreadful silence. "Such a shame it had to end this way," he mused, as if discussing the weather. "But you, and your... impediment... were always going to be a problem."
Before Suzy could even think to strike, to lunge with the sword she barely knew how to hold, before she could summon any coherent thought beyond the all-consuming grief for Ryan, Byron raised his reloaded pistol. He sighted along the barrel, his chilling smile the last thing she saw clearly.