Page 131 of Archer

Webb fell to his knees, absorbing my blows as the thunder rolled.

A voice in the back of my mind told me to stop before I killed him.

I called my control back to me with such intense effort, I never saw the blade coming.

Chapter 44

Harper

I scrambled off the floor, where I’d held my ear to the vent, listening to the threats and breaking furniture.

Webb said he had a knife.

I had Archer’s only weapon.

Tears blurred my vision as I unlocked the door and moved down the hallway. The little doorknob lock wouldn’t have kept him out anyway. Not if he somehow got the best of Archer.

Desperate times, I thought.

Desperate measures.

I carried my phone at chest level and rounded the corner to the stairs, the gun tucked into my waistband at the back. I didn’t want to use it, not even on Webb.

But I would if I had to.

I startled at the sound of breaking glass and the sight of Archer and Webb rolling on the living room floor. Both were bloody and injured.

I’d dialed 911 the moment Archer sent me to his room, and I’d given the dispatcher our details. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones in trouble right now. People were hurt, trapped, and in trouble all over the island.

A deputy was already on the way. We just had to wait.

I opened Instagram and moved my thumb over the button. The notification pulsed.

Then, I was live.

I muttered a brief explanation for the camera, then turned it on the catastrophe that had been Knox’s living room. The coffee table was busted into pieces, the floors wet with rain, covered in palm fronds and storm-blown debris.

The viewer count climbed as I descended. Twenty. Fifty. A hundred and still rising, the number ticking upward, and a clear thought cut through everything else. If help didn’t arrive in time, at least this would all be documented.

“Oh, God.” I covered my mouth with my free hand as I drew nearer, astounded by the amount of blood, all of it seeming to come from Archer. “This is Jeremy Webb,” I told the livestream. “He’s been stalking me. Tormenting me. Scaring me for fun. Ruining my life. Planning this.”

Whatever else happened, Webb would go to jail.

“Stop!” I screamed to be heard above the storm and their fight.

“I’m here.”

Webb’s head snapped toward me. The blade of his knife dripped with Archer’s blood.

Every hard angle of Webb’s face released when he saw me, jaw unclenching, eyes widening.

The thing he’d been hunting for so long was finally in reach.

The object of his delusion. The prize.

“Harper!” Archer barked. He swung an arm wide, the other hand pressed to his abdomen where a dark stain coated his shirt down to his waistband. “Stay back!”

My stomach ached as I took in his injuries. A split lip. Sliced arm. An apparently severe stab wound to the torso.