The woods were freezing, the pine needles slick with dew under my boots, but I couldn't feel the cold. I was burning up from the inside out.
I moved through the shadows of the treeline, circling the clearing like a ghost. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat that threatened to give me away, but the noise of the idling helicopter masked my clumsy footsteps.
I found my spot behind a thick oak tree, about thirty yards from the dock.
I had a clear line of sight.
The scene looked like a nightmare illuminated by the helicopter's spotlight.
Cassian stood in the center of the clearing, his hands raised, his posture deceptively relaxed. He was ten feet away from them.
Vittorio stood by the water, looking triumphant. The wind whipped his coat around him like a cape. He looked like a king accepting a surrender.
Claudia was to his right, her rifle barrel pressed into the soft hollow behind Rook's ear.
Rook was on his knees, blood dripping from his chin onto the wooden planks of the dock. He looked beaten, but his eyes were scanning the woods. He saw movement. He saw me.
His eyes widened a fraction. He shifted his weight, tensing his leg muscles. He knew.
"BRING IT HERE," Vittorio commanded, holding out his hand.
"You let them go first," Cassian shouted over the wind. "Let the big man walk. Then you get the drive."
"YOU ARE IN NO POSITION TO NEGOTIATE," Vittorio laughed. It was a cruel, dismissive sound. "I HAVE THE GUNS. I HAVE THE HOSTAGE. AND I HAVE THE PILOT READY TO BURN THIS CABIN TO THE GROUND IF I DON'T LIKE YOUR TONE."
I raised the Glock. It felt impossibly heavy.
I rested my wrist against the rough bark of the oak tree to steady my aim. I lined up the iron sights.
I could aim for Claudia. If I dropped her, Rook would be safe.
But then my eyes drifted to the man in the navy suit.
Vittorio.
I saw the video in my mind. The grainy footage of him shoving my mother. The way she fell. The way he picked me up—his toddler daughter—and stepped over her dead body without shedding a tear.
"Mommy is just sleeping."
He didn't just kill her. He killed my childhood. He killed the person I was supposed to be. And for fifteen years, he had let me rot in a cage, waiting for the convenient moment to erase me.
My finger tightened on the trigger.
He is my father, a small, terrified voice whispered in my head.
No, a stronger voice answered. He is just a donor. Cassian is my father.
In the clearing, Vittorio stepped closer to Cassian, impatience marring his handsome face.
"Stop stalling, Vance! Hand it over, or I tell Claudia to paint the dock with your dog's brains!"
That was it.
I exhaled, letting the air leave my lungs to steady the shake in my hands. I aimed for the center of his chest.
"Goodbye, Daddy," I whispered.
I pulled the trigger.
CRACK.
The gunshot tore through the night, distinct and sharp over the drone of the helicopter.
In the spotlight, Vittorio jerked violently. A bloom of red exploded on his right shoulder—I had pulled the shot slightly left in my adrenaline.
He spun around, clutching his chest, a look of pure, baffled shock on his face as he crumbled to the ground.
"SNIPER!" Claudia screamed.
Chaos erupted.
Rook didn't wait. As soon as Claudia turned her head toward the gunshot, Rook exploded upwards. He drove his head backward into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. Her rifle went off wild, a bullet tearing into the sky.
Cassian moved like a blur. He didn't run for cover. He ran for me.
"ELENA!" he roared, drawing a hidden knife from his boot as he sprinted toward the treeline.
The guards by the helicopter opened fire blindly into the woods, bullets chewing up the bark of the trees around me. I ducked, covering my head, debris raining down on me.
"GET DOWN!"
Cassian dove into the brush, tackling me. His heavy body slammed over mine, shielding me as bullets whizzed overhead.
"You missed," he panted, looking down at me. His face was streaked with dirt, his eyes wild.
"I hit him!" I yelled back. "I saw him fall!"
"You hit his shoulder," Cassian corrected, grabbing my arm and hauling me up. "If you shoot the King, Elena, you have to kill him! Now move!"
We scrambled deeper into the woods, the darkness our only ally.
Behind us, on the dock, I heard Vittorio screaming in pain and rage.
"KILL THEM! BURN THE FOREST DOWN! I WANT HER HEAD!"
He was alive.
"Rook!" I gasped as we ran, stumbling over roots. "We left Rook!"
"Look back!" Cassian shouted, dragging me up a ridge.
I glanced over my shoulder.
Rook wasn't on the dock. In the chaos, he had rolled off the side into the water. He was gone—submerged in the black cove. He was safe, for the moment.
"Where are we going?" I cried. The helicopter was rising into the air. Its spotlight began to sweep the trees, hunting us.
"The caves," Cassian said, not slowing down. "There is a sea cave on the north point. If we can get inside, the thermal cameras can't see us."
We ran. My lungs burned. The bandage on my foot had torn loose, but I ignored the pain.
Thwup. Thwup. Thwup.
The helicopter hovered directly over us. The wind from the rotors thrashed the treetops. The blinding light hit us.
"THERE!" a voice amplified from the sky.
Bullets began to rain down, tearing up the earth at our heels. It wasn't a suppression fire anymore. It was an execution.
"Jump!" Cassian yelled.
We had reached the edge of the cliff. Below us, the ocean crashed against jagged rocks.
"Are you crazy?" I screamed.
"Trust me!"
He grabbed my hand, interlacing his fingers with mine.
We leaped into the void.