LOGINAvery's POVThey took statements one at a time, each of us in a different corner of the front garden. An officer worked through the same questions with each of us in turn, patient and methodical. The afternoon light had gone down while none of us were paying attention. Longer shadows stretched across the grass. The ordinary business of a day continuing regardless of what had almost happened in the middle of it.I gave mine standing near the door. My voice was steadier than I expected. The details came out in order, plain and simple, the way I had learned to say hard things without softening them."Take your time," the officer told me, when I paused partway through describing the gun. "There is no rush.""I would rather just finish it. If I stop I do not think I will be able to start again properly."He nodded and let me continue.When it was done, the officer doing the paperwork by the police car looked up at another who had been on the radio, something passing between them."Confirme
Avery's POVDean lunged.Not toward the door, not away from the sound of the sirens, but straight at Carter, the gun still in his hand, some final desperate instinct pushing him forward instead of back, as though closing the distance was the only thing left he had any control over.Liam moved first, grabbing for Dean's arm, and Carter grabbed at the same moment from the other side, both of them fighting to control the weapon rather than the man holding it. For a few seconds everything became a tangle of arms and shouting. My mom was screaming Dean's name. Jade appeared in the doorway behind me with her phone still pressed to her ear, her voice suddenly loud and clear into it, telling whoever was on the line that it was happening now, right now, hurry.I could not tell whose hands were whose in the tangle, three men grappling for one small object that decided everything. Dean's face twisted with something that was no longer quite anger, no longer quite fear, just pure desperation, his
Avery's POVJade moved without anyone noticing, slipping backward along the fence on her side towards the back while every eye on that path stayed locked on Dean and Carter, on the gun still wavering between them, catching the light every time his hand shook. I only registered the movement out of the very corner of my eye, a shift of shadow that could have been anything, and I was grateful, in that moment, for how completely Dean's attention had narrowed down to Carter alone.I only realised she was in my house now when I heard, faintly, the sound of the back door easing shut behind her, careful, deliberate, the kind of quiet that came from someone trying very hard not to be heard.She had likely come in through the back fence gate and then the kitchen.I did not dare look away from Dean to check where she had gone, could not risk drawing his attention toward the house, toward anything that might tip whatever fragile balance was holding this moment together. But I could hear fragments
Avery's POVDean's hand came out of his jacket holding a gun, small and black and impossibly ordinary looking for something that could end everything in this street in a single second.Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.The world seemed to narrow down to that one object. The way it caught the afternoon light, the way Dean's hand shook slightly around it, not steady, not confident, but not any less dangerous for that. If anything the shaking made it worse, made it feel like something that could go off by accident just as easily as on purpose. I could hear my own pulse in my ears, louder than anything else on that street, louder than the birds still singing somewhere in a hedge as though nothing at all had changed in the last three seconds.Somewhere down the block a car door closed, an ordinary sound from an ordinary world that no longer felt like the one I was standing in.Liam moved first.He stepped sideways, putting himself between Dean and the doorway where my mom and I stood, his arm
Avery's POVCarter opened the front door before any of us could stop him."Do not," my mom screamed, grabbing at his arm, her fingers digging into his sleeve."He is not going to calm down staring at us through a window," Carter said, and stepped outside before she could argue further, his shoulders squared in a way I had never seen from him before. His posture looked like a man finally walking toward the thing he had been avoiding for twenty years instead of away from it.We followed, all of us crowding into the doorway, close enough to hear but not close enough to reach either of them if something happened, my heart hammering against my ribs. Liam's hand found mine without either of us deciding it, his grip tight enough that I could feel his own pulse through it."Stay behind me," Liam said quietly, his eyes never leaving Dean's back.I nodded even though I doubted either of us would actually be able to hold still if things went wrong.Dean stood on the path, swaying slightly, his e
Avery's POVAs soon as we got to the kitchen, we turned around and went back to the living room.We locked the door immediately, all three of us moving on instinct. My mum checked the latch twice, then a third time, her hands not quite steady enough to trust the first check. Liam stood at the window watching the empty street like Dean might reappear if he looked away for even a second.I sat down on a chair because my legs did not feel entirely trustworthy anymore. I put my head in my hands, waiting for the shaking to settle, which it did not."He is still out there," Liam said. "Somewhere. He likely did not go far. I do not think a man in that state just walks away and calms down on his own.""I know," my mom said. "We need to call the police.""He's gone anyway. I don't think we need to just yet," Liam said. "Maybe I should call my dad. He's just around the corner. The police could take longer than that, and I do not want us sitting here alone if Dean comes back before anyone arrive
Liam's POVShe looked at me like the question was either a foolish one or that I was foolish to ask it."Of course I like you," she said. "That is not the issue."I was glad to hear that she at least liked me, but I was still frustrated by the situation. "Then what is the issue? Because from where
Avery's POV"I was wondering when you were going to pick up," Colton said.His voice was calm, without any ounce of guilt present there. He didn't even sound particularly apologetic. Just smooth and measured and rehearsed, the voice of someone who had spent the last several hours deciding exactly h
Avery's POVI couldn't move.I just stood there on the front step staring at him like an absolute idiot, and he stared back at me with no recognition whatsoever on his face, which made sense, because the last time he saw me I had a full face of stage makeup, a black wig down to my shoulders and a r
Avery's POV My mum thought I was waitressing at a bar somewhere downtown. It was a perfect alibi for my late nights and the decent tips I brought home on work nights. There was absolutely nothing to worry about. I had kept that story clean for months and I had no plans to change it."Busy night,"







