Page 86 of Best Laid Plans

“You hand Rebecca over to me now, or this bullet is going in your head,” James snarls at Delphi.

She refuses to back down and glares at him right back. “Go fuck yourself.”

I see his finger tighten on the trigger before I scream his name. His eyes widen when he sees I’m holding a scalpel against my throat.

“If you hurt anyone else, I’ll kill myself. Then you can never have me.”

“Lil no,” Legs gasps, but I don’t take my eyes from James’s manic ones.

“You’re bluffing,” he tells me, taking a step closer to me.

“I never bluff. I don’t want to live if everyone I care about dies. They don’t deserve to die because of me, and I refuse to be the one left behind. If they go, I go. I won’t let you take anything else from me, James.”

I can feel my hand shaking, and he can see it. His lips curl into a cocky smirk. He’s so confident that my fear of him will hold me back that he turns to Delphi and raises the gun again. This time he’ll do it if I don’t do something drastic.

Legs screams as I dig the scalpel into my skin and start to drag it across my throat.

At Legs’s scream, James spins around, horror bleaching his face bone-white as I feel blood run down my neck. “Goodbye, James,” I tell him softly. This is it. One way or another, I’m dying here today, or he is.

“No! NO!” he yells, Delphi forgotten as he runs to me, wrapping his hand around mine, stopping me from pulling the blade any farther. “I won’t let you go, not now, not ever,” he curses, yanking the bloody scalpel away and tossing it to the ground before he pulls me against his chest.

I move my hand from behind my back and reach up as if to hug him, tipping my head back in time for him to press his lips to mine. Tears run down our faces as I plunge the syringe into his neck and push the plunger. He freezes, eyes wide.

“You don’t get to decide that. Not anymore,” I whisper against his lips.

He stumbles back, and his eyes land on the syringe in my hand. “What?” he slurs as I stagger toward him. I reach for the gun in his hand and slip it into mine. He collapses to his knees.

“Hannibal ran this clinic before he left. The man is an oddity and, as such, liked…odd things. Take this, for instance,” I tap the syringe and smirk. “This is curare. It’s a substance extracted from the leaves and vines of Chondrodendron tomentosum, which Hannibal brought back from a run he did somewhere in South America. Have you ever heard of curare, James?”

He collapses to the ground, staring up at the ceiling, fear and confusion in his eyes as I lean over him.

“Indigenous people in South American rainforests use it as a poison on the tips of their arrows and darts when hunting because it paralyzes their prey.” I crouch as his breathing grows shallow. “Taken orally, it can act as a muscle relaxant, but if it enters your bloodstream?” I shake my head and grin. “Death by asphyxiation. And I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more than you.

“So as you lie there, unable to move, feeling weak and helpless, remember this—You. Did. Not. Win. You’ll die here today, a pathetic excuse for a man. I’ll go on to live a long and happy life with the man I love, and I’ll never think of you again.”

I get to my feet and walk away, refusing to be the last thing he sees before he dies. He doesn’t deserve comfort.

The room sways. Legs rushes over to me and yanks open drawers to grab a dressing, which she presses against my throat. “You stupid, stupid woman,” she cries.

“Go check on Conan. He’s hurt badly,” I warn her as I gather up armfuls of supplies and follow.

“Stay with the kids, Delphi,” I call out, not even looking at her. My eyes land on Glory, lying on the bed, eyes open, neck clearly broken. I swallow down my vomit as I drop down beside a pale Tina who is lying on the floor, her hands covering her stomach as she bleeds out.

“Hey, you’re gonna be okay,” I tell her, pressing a dressing over her wound. The smell is horrendous—the bullet likely tore through her intestines. Her skin is gray and waxy, her eyes glassy, and her lips have a blue tint.

“Hang in there for me, Tina. Help is coming,” I tell her, even though it’s a lie. I grip her hand tightly and lean over her, pressing a kiss to her. James might not have deserved comfort in death, but Tina does. She’s too far gone to make it to the hospital in time, even if help does arrive.

She opens her mouth to whisper something to me, but her words never make it past her lips. Her eyes stare at nothing, her mouth open as her final gasp passes her lips.

“Fuck!” I curse.

“Lil, I need help over here,” Legs yells. The worry in her voice forces me to move, grabbing the supplies and running over to where she is crouched over Conan.

The room pitches and sways, and I collapse next to them, my knees hitting the ground with a thump that rattles my bones, but I barely feel the pain. In the back of my head, I worry I’m losing too much blood, but I can’t focus on both Conan and me. Right now, he needs me.

His eyes widen when he catches sight of me, but I glare at him. “You clearly haven’t seen yourself,” I snap as I rip open his shirt and see a gunshot wound to the right side of his chest and a ragged one to the left of his stomach, which must be the exit point for the bullet that went into his back.

I press a field dressing to the wound at his side. It doesn’t have the same smell as Tina’s did, which I’m taking as a blessing. But the one in his chest is bleeding profusely. I slap another dressing to his chest and press against it, making him cry out. I apply pressure, my head foggy, my neck throbbing, but I refuse to let his man die.