Chapter 67 - The Husband I Buried

Now

I burst through the door with Thomas.

What followed was chaos. Voices. Movement. Someone – Luis – shouting behind us. We didn’t stop to find out what he was saying, hearts pounding as we ran down the sterile corridor, half blind with urgency.

So we didn’t hear the sharp footsteps coming towards us, not until the double doors in front of us burst open and she stepped right into our path.

I shivered at the familiar way she stood, the way she carried herself, her features pulled back by her tight ponytail. Her expression hard, gritty.

Elena.

She didn’t rush. She walked slowly, daring someone to challenge her.

She stopped halfway down the corridor and looked around, taking us all in, like she’d been waiting for this moment to arrive. Behind her, Dr. Avery was already moving to regain control.

But the power had shifted.

Elena lifted a finger.

‘Don’t,’ she told us mildly. ‘You’ll only make it worse.’

My grip tightened around the keys to the Aston Martin.

‘You’re not leaving,’ she said. ‘Not until this is over.’

Over?

This wasn’t about stopping me. This was about ending me.

Thomas shifted beside me, every muscle tight.

‘Tell me. Does the name Hannah Lyon mean anything to you?’ Elena asked icily.

‘Hannah . . .’ I faltered.

‘She was killed. And you helped the man who killed her get away with it. The police said it was the best outcome we could realistically expect.’

Hannah. The name settled into me slowly, like something sinking through layers of sediment. I didn’t even remember her face. I remembered the case. The timeline. The procedural knots I’d untangled one by one. I remembered telling myself it wasn’t my job to decide what was true – only what could be proven. I was relieved when the case wrapped up, neat and contained, closed without leaving a mess behind. Another win.

I remembered believing that was enough.

My stomach twisted as the quiet horror of it sunk in: the realization that this was the other side of the case. The side I didn’t see. The grief. Maybe that was what I was shielding myself from. I’d told myself justice was a system. Impersonal. Clean.

Elena’s eyes now told me otherwise.

She hadn’t come here for revenge on a stranger. This was nothing to do with Luis. She’d come here carrying a body the law had set down and walked away from.

And I had been part of that.

Elena’s mask had finally fallen. Of course she wasn’t Elena.

She was Hannah’s sister. Rebecca, and Aimee, and every version of her I’d met, had been a costume she slipped into like a new skin.

She hadn’t been mourning Luis or Silas at the graveyard. She had been crying for her sister.

‘This,’ she said coldly, ‘is the part where you get to prove yourself.’ Her hand fidgeted with something tucked into her waistband. Metal. A gun?

‘Elena, this isn’t—’ Dr. Avery was behind us now, with Luis.

She turned towards Avery, inching the gun from her waistband. Its handle gleamed in her hand.

‘We can figure this out,’ Avery said slowly, edging closer.

‘Shut up and stay where you are,’ she ordered, her finger ready on the trigger. ‘I mean it.’

‘Elena,’ I said, hands up to show her I wasn’t a threat.

She slowly turned and trained the gun on me, her eyes narrowing in hatred.

‘I’m so sorry about Hannah,’ I said, my hands still in front of me. ‘What happened to her, it wasn’t fair.’

Another flash of the crime scene photos passed through my memory. Photos I’d thought were horrific, but not proof that the man accused of the crime had done it.

‘I’d like to revisit her case, and help you try and find out who killed her.’

‘I know who killed her,’ she said icily. ‘It was the man they let go. The man who used to talk to Hannah outside the school gates. A man I got to know here, at the Institute.’

‘Stop.’ Dr. Avery stepped forward, spooked. ‘Just—’

Elena whipped around and shot him. The sound cut the air. Sharp. Final.

Avery dropped where he stood, the back of his head striking the floor with a dull, hollow crack that echoed through the room.

For a split second, no one moved. Shocked. Then everything happened at once.

Thomas lunged but Elena, gripping the gun with both hands, fired again, the bullet hurtling past Thomas and straight towards me—

Luis shoved me hard, throwing his body between us. I watched numbly as a red arc exploded from his side.

He grunted, staggering, but didn’t fall. His hands went instinctively to my shoulders, pushing me back.

‘Run,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Now.’

Another shot rang out. This time the bullet went straight through the glass in the corridor window and Thomas seized his chance. He slammed into Elena, knocking her off balance. The gun went flying out of her grip, skidding across the floor and clattering to a stop near the wall.

Elena screamed with rage, pulling herself back to her feet.

‘You chose wrong,’ she snarled at Luis, scrambling towards him. ‘You were supposed to kill her.’

Again, Thomas intercepted her, slamming her back into the wall with a force that knocked the air from her lungs. She fought like an animal – biting, scratching, spitting – but this time, she was outmatched.

Luis collapsed to one knee. Blood soaked through his shirt.

This is what he was trying to save me from when he disappeared. He was already in too deep. But if he loved me enough to take a bullet for me, maybe he loved me enough to let me go.

I dropped beside him without thinking and pressed against the wound, hands slick, panic roaring in my ears. I caught sight of Jess in my peripheral vision, checking Dr. Avery for a pulse. The look on her face told me she hadn’t found one.

‘Mackenzie,’ Luis said, breath shallow as I tore off my shirt and pressed it against his side, trying to stop the bleeding, afraid that if exerted too much pressure I could do more damage. ‘I tried to stop her.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Just sit tight and hold on.’

He held my free hand against his face, and I wondered if he could still feel it. That spark that had been ignited the first time we touched. Still burning.

‘Hold on,’ said Jess in a small voice. ‘I’ve called an ambulance.’

I barely heard her. All I could hear was Luis’s breath, growing more ragged. He didn’t have much time.

Elena stopped struggling in Thomas’s grip, going completely still.

And then, she laughed.

Security flooded the room seconds later. Too late for Dr. Avery, and too late for the Institute to pretend what was happening here was anything other than what it was.

Elena continued laughing as they restrained her. A broken, unhinged sound.

‘She’ll never be clean again,’ she called to me. ‘Not after what she did.’

I met her gaze, looking at what I’d helped create. I thought about what Luis had said, about my motivation.

Is this what winning felt like?

‘I truly am sorry about your sister,’ I whispered after her.

The words felt inadequate the moment they left my mouth, but they were the only honest ones I had.