Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
BANG.
The shot ricocheted through the room. Marley flinched; a bullet hit the doorframe. She half expected pain to split through her body but it never came. The shot had narrowly missed her head. It echoed through the room, the metal shaking under the force that hit it. She spun on her heels to see Tate, eyebrows pinched together and his mouth set into an angry, straight line. He was still heaped on the ground as if he'd collapsed there and had no energy to stand back up. He stared at her with dead eyes before he growled in anger and turned the gun on himself.
Marley cried out to try and get him to stop. Despite how she felt about him, she couldn't watch him die. He didn't get to take the easy way out. It was like the world was running in slow motion as his finger pulled harshly on the trigger. There was a click. And then another. And then another. But no shot came; the gun was empty. Tate had wasted his last shot on a failed attempt to kill her.
He was angry. Fury shot through his veins like a drug and he yelled, slamming the gun against his forehead over and over again like he'd finally gone crazy. Marley stood there in disbelief, sure that if he carried on his barrage much longer, he'd draw blood. He only stopped when a swarm of guards infiltrated the room, all racing into the room the second the door slid open, and wrestled the gun from him. He was still screaming and struggling against them as they restrained him, madness pouring from him, and she dreaded to think what he would have done if they hadn't had his arms pinned tightly behind his back.
Marley backed from the room cautiously, eyes transfixed on the scene unfolding before her. She couldn't tear her eyes away; it wasn't because she was scared of him — she wasn't scared, not anymore, and she'd never be scared, everagain — but because of the way he was screaming her name with such intense, feral ferocity. He spat out her name like it was pure poison like it was a condemnation. She gulped as she crept away but her throat was dry. Marley felt a hand on the small of her back, pressing reassuringly into the back of her shirt.
"Are you okay?" It was Abby Griffin. She smiled softly. Her voice was soothing.
She nodded. She couldn't get her words out; even if she had tried to speak, she was sure her voice would come out uneven and practically unrecognisable. There was just far too many emotions flying around inside her head, bouncing from her bones.
Despite her silence, Abby still guided her away from the incident still unfolding in front of her. Tate's shrieks disappeared, fading into quiet echos that rung from the walls, tiptoeing after her until it could carry itself no more. Marley was sure Abby had seen her staring — she wasn't sure that she'd even blinked since she'd left engineering — and swept her away before she did any sort of damage.
