Instinct

44. The End of Everything

It was like the swarm of people descended out of nowhere, and no one in the car had a chance to react before the screaming and yelling morphed into a crescendo around them and the car was being rocked on its wheels. Alexei's eyes had rounded with fear. Stephanie's heart had launched itself into her throat.

"What is going on?" Laura yelled.

The knuckles whitened in the grip they had on the youngest Armstrong. Neither of their guards from the front seat answered, they didn't look back either. Instead, they calmly put the car into park and opened their respective doors. They stepped out without a word.

In less than a moment, people surged into the car. They were nameless faces and grabbing hands and terrifying streams of hateful words. Alexei was screaming, Laura crowding her against the seat, trying to shield her with her body. Stephanie was closest to the doors.

It only took a second for them to have hold of her, and then it was Stephanie's turn to scream and kick as she was dragged over the seat. Then Liam's panicked yells pierced through the roar of the hundreds of people outside.

Fingernails dug into her skin. Fists struck out at her. All Stephanie could feel was the terrible certainty that if they got her out of the car, then they would kill her. It was that certainty that made her fight and scrabble for purchase on anything she can while her sister was crying and her mother screaming and Liam yelling.

There was a part of her that wondered if they'd somehow walk away from this if she just... let go.

But that thought was drowned out by the instinct to push and pull and drag herself out of her attackers' grip and live. In the fray, Liam had reached out and grabbed hold of her forearm. Stephanie kicked back and landed a foot in someone's ribcage at the same moment that she clutched blindly at him with both hands, grabbing hold of his arm and his shirt.

Half of her body was out of the car, and Liam was anchored only by bracing himself on the other side of the separator between passenger and driver's side. The stretch was terrible and she could see the strain in Liam's muscles as he tried to pull her back against the strength of ten others.

Her right eye was already swelling and she tasted blood on her tongue.

"Just hold on!" Liam yelled.

His eyes were wild, scared. In a flash of light, Stephanie saw her mother reach forward and felt it as she wrapped her hand around her daughter's other wrist. All Stephanie could do was grit her teeth against the pull threatening to dislocate her shoulders, and close her eyes to hide the tears falling freely from them.

She was further out of the car than she had been just a second ago, and she could hear someone threatening to go in and hurt her family to get her to let go. The jeers were disjointed in her ears, but they were backed by the agony of the past couple of years. The fear. The anger. The grief.

When Stephanie opened her eyes, she knew what she was going to do. Before she could even slacken her grip on her mother and Liam, he realized what she was going to do.

"Don't you dare!" he snarled.

She hesitated. He still had the influence of an alpha, and it hovered over her like a threat, forcing her fingers to stay firmly wrapped around his arm. But Stephanie had proved time and time again that no one had power of her except her. That choice was hers.

She let go.

There was a momentary tug of war, but Liam and Laura couldn't win it. A slide of skin against palms, and Stephanie was gone.

***

"Murderer!"

"Killer!"