Tattler || 5sos

Twenty-eight

            ~Ashton~

            The building wasn't that old, or that big, but hell was it intimidating. Maybe it was because of what I knew was about to happen inside, or maybe it was because of the gun tucked into the waistband of my jeans, but my hands were shaking. Amazing how one day can warp the rest of your life. Amazing how much of a different person I would be if that night had never happened.

            Luke slaps his hand on my shoulder. I look over at him. I wasn't even friends with him before all this shit, now I can't imagine who I would call in a bad situation. "Ready for this?" he asks, glancing from the building to me. I take a breath.

            "For this to be over? Hell yes."

            Luke forces out a laugh and tilts his head back to the building. I didn't even feel like this was real life, I felt like this was happening to someone else, one of those bittersweet moments before the tragedy. After today this would be over, and we would either go on with our lives or never come out. Either way, I was ready.

            "Let's end this," Luke says. I nod, still not believing this could be our last conversation.

            "Ready boys?" Ivy steps in front of us, a wicked grin on her face. Luke sticks his fist out to me, and I pound it before falling into line behind her.

            The door is unlocked. We move through the first floor, not making a sound. It's vacant. Ivy leads the way to the next floor, and when she opens the door we are met with a surprised-looking, bulky man. Ivy jumps back as he lunges for her neck. I reach for my gun and reach up to shoot, but Ivy already has him against the wall, a knife digging upward through his jaw. She slides it back out and flicks the blood off.

            "We need to split up," she whispers as she quietly slid the man to the floor, blood marking down the wall. "First one to get to Emery takes her back to the car. Take out as many people as you can," she meets our eyes as she says the last part of this. We must look horrified, because for the first time in my life, Ivy gives us a sympathetic look. "You just can't think about it, okay? Just do it. The way I grew up it doesn't affect me, but-but you just have to separate yourself from it."

            I glance to Luke, whose eyes are as steely as ever. I swallow and nod, breaking away from the two of them hesitantly. That’s it. No ceremonious farewell. No acknowledgement. That's it. If we die that's it.

            I hurry down a hallway, peeking in the open doorways. I don't come across anyone on the hallway. I don't hear anything close. At the end of the hallway is a slightly closed door, and the faint sound of voices. I run the back of my pal mover my forehead before nudging the door with my toe. The room is big, like a gallery. In the middle of the room is a chair, an in the chair is Emery. I slow my breathing, for there are two other people in the room. Britt and her father.

            They haven't noticed me yet, not even Emery. Britt's dad holds a knife at Emery's chest, drawing a faint line in her skin. "Now Emery you've known we were going to kill you. I was going to wait until all your friends were here so they could watch, but my daughter insists. And what she wants, she gets."

            "Funny," Emery spits, her face wet with sweat. "That's exactly what she thought when she slept with Tara's boyfriend." A slight cry escaped her as the knife dig deeper.

            "Don't test me-"

            "Daddy," Britt holds her hand out. "I want to do it."

            Her father stops, and hands her the knife with a smile. "Of course, sweetie."

            Britt kneels next to Emery and hold the knife at her crown. "If you weren't so perfect I wouldn't have hated you so much. Perfect, hair, perfect boyfriend, perfect life. Once you got out of that stupid self-deprecating phase it was like you were hell-bent on being better than me."

            Emery spit in her face. "You're so dense. We were friends, Britt!"

            Britt laughed. "Now I can at least be better at one thing than you: living."

            I step through the doorway and fire at her father's shoulder. When he topples, Britt jumped up and hurtled the knife in my direction. I dodged it, barely. A chuckle escaped her lips.

            "Ashton Irwin. If you hadn't left my apartment so soon I wouldn't be having this problem right know."

            "Luckily for me I have better sense than Calum did," I walk forward, keeping my aim on her.

            "None of you are going to live past today, Ash," she laughs. "You're all going to get what you deserve for killing Tara."

            I shake my head. "You're wrong."

            "Am I, Ashton?" she tilts her head. "Are you going to kill me? Is that why you shot my father in the shoulder instead of the head? Because you're not afraid to kill me?"

            Adrenaline pumped through my veins and, without thinking, I spun back to where her father lay, clutching his shoulder. My finger squeezed the trigger before my hesitation could catch up with me and I watched as my bullet tore through his head. A sound like a whimper escaped Britt's mouth, but I couldn't keep my eyes off his body. His eyes were still open, staring at me.

            I tried to detach myself from it, like Ivy said. This was nothing. Nothing just happened. No. I blocked my brain and lifted my eyes from the corpse. But before I could turn on Britt with my newly blank stare, my newly steeled expression, she cried out, and gripped her hands around my throat, her red nails, either from blood or polish, digging in.

            "I'm going to let Emery watch me kill you," she hissed in my ear. "Then I'm going to bring her parents here and slit their throats open in front of her. Then I will bring everyone she every cared about here and kill them until she is broken and gone and then I will leave her here until she wastes away from starvation or dehydration, whichever comes first." Her hands tightened around my throat and my vision became splotchy.

            "Stop!" a voice at the door yelled, and Britt's hands loosened enough so that I could just barely breath and see that Luke stood in front of us, his gun raised. I move to try to shoot Britt, even though she was standing behind me, but my gun isn't in my hands; I must have dropped it.

            "Luke to the rescue," Britt laughs, her breath hot on my neck.

            "I don't want to shoot you Britt," he says, his voice slightly shaking.

            "And you won't," she smiled. "You love me no matter what remember?"

            "I don't want to, but I will. Let him go," Luke swallowed. This was paining him.

            Britt put her cheek against mine. "We could give it another chance, Luke, you and I. I'm newly single if you didn't notice-"

            The impact echoed through me. My ears were ringing as she fell behind me, leaving her still warm-blood on me where she had been. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and stepped away, shaking my head. I looked down at her, sprawled next to her father. Luke came over and stood next to me, a damaged look etched in his face.

            "Separate yourself," I tell him, "It had to be done."

            Regaining myself, I went around them to where Emery sat tied up in the chair, her wounds dripping. "Are you okay?" I ask because I know I'm not.

            "No," she replies, reaching up to touch my cheek once I've untied her, "but we will be."

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That's it. next is the epiloge but this will be the last real chapter and the last one in Ashton's point of view. ill post it tomorrow because i have put myself in shock by ending this fic.

comment up a storm, please.

xoxo