Chapter 7 - The Final Sacrifice
I didn't have a weapon. I didn't have armor. All I had was the sheer, instinctual momentum of a mother protecting the man who had saved her son's life.
As Vance pulled the trigger, I grabbed a heavy iron utility hook hanging from a nearby crane cable and swung it with all my body weight straight into Vance's arm.
BANG!
Vance's shot went wild, shattering a light fixture overhead as the heavy iron hook smashed into his wrist with a sickening crack. Vance screamed in agony, dropping his silver pistol onto the floor.
He turned on me with feral rage, grabbing me by the hair and slamming me against a wooden crate. "You damned bitch!" he snarled, raising his fist. "You fixed him!"
Before his fist could land, a hand like a vice forged from solid steel clamped onto Vance's throat.
It was Sebastian.
Standing tall, his blue eyes burning with an apocalyptic rage, Sebastian lifted Vance off his feet with one arm, slamming him violently against the steel shipping container behind us.
"Touch her again," Sebastian growled, his voice a deep, demonic rumble that filled the entire warehouse, "and I will tear you apart with my bare hands."
Vance choked, gasping for air, his legs kicking helplessly in the air. "Sebastian... please... we were brothers..."
"Brothers don't shoot each other in the back," Sebastian said coldly.
With a final, devastating effort, Sebastian threw Vance across the room. Vance crashed through a wooden pallet, hitting his head against the concrete pillar, and slumped into unconsciousness.
Around us, the gunfire died down. Gabriel and Sebastian's remaining men had eliminated or disarmed the rest of Vance's mercenaries. The warehouse fell quiet, save for the sound of rain hammering the roof and the heavy, ragged breathing of the survivors.
Sebastian stood motionless in the center of the floor. But the extreme physical strain was taking its toll. His legs began to shake violently, his knees buckling under the sudden exhaustion of twenty years of unused muscle mass.
He swayed backward, falling toward the hard concrete.
I leaped forward, catching him under his arms. We both tumbled to the floor together, Sebastian's massive frame collapsing against me as I cushioned his head.
"Clare..." he rasped out, his chest heaving, sweat pouring down his pale face. He looked at me, his icy eyes filled with an emotion he had never allowed himself to feel before—pure, unadulterated vulnerability. "Did you... did you see me?"
Tears welled in my eyes as I smiled down at him, wiping the sweat and grime from his forehead.
"I saw you, Sebastian," I whispered, holding his head close to my chest. "You stood up."
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A soft, genuine smile broke across his rugged face—a smile free from darkness, free from crime, free from the weight of his wheelchair.
"You did this, Clare," he murmured, his hand gently touching my cheek before his eyes drifted closed from sheer physical exhaustion. "You saved me..."
