"Do you normally make-out with the people you're hired to kill? It doesn't strike me as very professional."
"Put the gun down," Gabriel panted, not answering her.
"Why on earth would I do that?"
"Because you're not going to shoot me," Gabriel rep...
*The following chapter contains violence. Reader discretion is advised.
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Dying wasn't as painful as Gabriel had expected. In fact, it wasn't painful at all. He opened his eyes, only to realize that the reason he wasn't in pain was because he hadn't been shot. He was unharmed.
But the silver-haired man lying in a rapidly-accumulating pool of his own blood wasn't as fortunate. Alexander's cruel, grey eyes were frozen open in shock, a bullet hole blasted into his temple.
"What are you doing Ashlyn?" Henry asked, his eerily calm tone turning the question into a threat.
"Killing the only person with the power to still execute your plan," Ash replied just as calmly. "Two of you are dead. One of you is in federal custody."
Gabriel felt a lift in his stomach, as if he had just gone over the drop of a rollercoaster. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but it was clear that Henry didn't own Ash the way he had proudly claimed to.
"You killed Huxley too?" her father asked, raising his eyebrows. "How?"
"No father. Huxley is the one in custody."
"Then I'm dead?" he responded, amused. "I feel pretty alive right now."
"It won't last."
Henry smiled. "We both know you don't have it in you to kill me Ashlyn."
"You're right," Ash conceded. "That's why I didn't do it. Alexander did."
The smile faded from Henry's face. "What?"
"I guess I shouldn't say for certain that you're dead. There's a 2% chance you'll live."
"Alexander gave me Naegleria," he realized.
Ash didn't reply, but the unapologetic gleam in her eyes was confirmation enough.
"How did you get him to go along with this?" her father asked, sounding unnaturally relaxed for someone facing imminent death.
"I may have mentioned that you had no plan to keep him alive after you launched your project. It wasn't that hard to convince him. I think he suspected it himself. And I may have also suggested that I could take over your part of this project if he were to get rid of you. Oddly enough, he seemed far more excited to work with me than with you."
She was so fucking smart. Gabriel couldn't believe that not only had she managed to hang onto her sanity around her father, but that she had been able to develop a plan to stop Henry from unleashing an apocalypse. But Henry's seeming lack of concern alarmed him.
"Well done, Ashlyn," Henry told her with a faint, condescending smile. "You've clearly thought this through. There's just one problem. I took the vaccine. The Naegleria won't do anything to me."
"I switched the labels," Ash replied easily. "Alexander was the only one who got the real vaccine. The rest of us got the placebo."
"I figured," Henry acknowledged, still smiling. "But it will be at least 24 hours before I start showing symptoms. As long as I take a dose of the vaccine before then, I'll be fine. And we have plenty."
