Changing You ✦ The Sequel

Chapter 30 {Z}

It was the fact that she ran off into a forest that I knew wasn't safe, without me knowing where she went and what was going on, that rung every alarm bell in my head that screamed protect her.

If there was some trauma that had rooted its way deeply into my soul, it was people running off and not making it back.

Ryan turned towards me. "What the hell is going on?"

"Stay here," I ordered, surprisingly calmly. And I wondered how, in my freaked out state of mind, I had been able to notice the smell of food burning.

Taking a quick glance into the kitchen, I found a baking pan still on the stove — the food inside it smoking to bits — and I guessed Ryan must have been making himself breakfast before we got downstairs.

"And turn off the stove before the house gets burned down," I added. Then I spun around on my heels, trusting Ryan to take care of it, and sprinted upstairs with a clear purpose in mind.

I dropped onto my knees beside my bed, hands reaching blindly underneath it for something I had hidden far in a corner for a reason. That I had hoped to never use again.

But as soon as my hand recognised the shape and cold metal of the gun, I didn't hesitate to grab ahold of it.

Everything about it was familiar. The feel, the weight, the way it fitted perfectly in my palm.

It was still loaded.

Because shooting Killian had only taken one bullet.

Clenching my fingers around the weapon, I pushed back the memories. The faces of the people who I had caused harm. Who's lives I had ended.

Together with the stone cold words of my father. How he had always accused me of being a hunter with too much feelings. Who let emotions cloud his judgement too easily. And how he had drilled me to put them away. Lock them behind bars. Bury them. Drown them.

But as much as I had tried to, I had never been able to fully clear my head. To block out my heart completely. To ignore my screaming conscious. And I still failed to do so right now.

I tugged the gun into the waistband of my jeans and covered it up with my shirt before racing back down the stairs.

But with every step, my speed lessened and the fear pumping in my heart increased.

I stopped dead in my tracks, halting in the middle of the stairs when I saw the widely opened front door.

No Ryan. No Gemini.

Just heavy, dreadful silence.

I swallowed harshly, the only sound I heard being the gushing of my own blood in my ears.

I slipped the gun back out of its hiding place and clasped it between my clammy palms.

"Ryan?" I called, taking a cautious step downstairs.

I didn't get any response at first, which made me think that maybe it had been Ryan himself going outside and leaving the door open, and not what I feared the most:

Someone else being in my house.

But then I heard him call back my name, barely audibly, his voice unsteady, and panic shot through me like a fire of white, hot, soaring bolts of fear.

I followed the sound of his voice to the kitchen, only now realising the sound of blood gushing in my ears hadn't been anything close to that. It was the stove, buzzing on full power, the smell of gas clinging to the air, like it was searching for something to light on fire.