Jessie Humphries: Killing Ruby Rose

I chose Jack Rose, and what he stood for. He might have made mistakes, but he willingly put his life on the line to protect me.

And he had died trying.

“Six, five…”

I looked back to Violet, who was slowly making his move toward my mom.

“Four, three…”

“Remember what I told you?” I asked Violet in a voice loud enough for him to hear through the noise. “You need to protect yourself. You have to fight.”

He shook his head, not understanding what I meant.

“Ruby, stay where you are,” Silver called out. “Don’t move any closer to him.”

“You’ll have to stop me!” I screamed and ran full speed into Violet’s waiting blade.

Too many things happened at once. I felt a searing pain in my side, my mother screamed, several gunshots tore open Violet’s arm, and I collapsed. I looked down to find Violet’s knife sticking up from my torso, like one of those Halloween costumes with the rubber knife poking out. I fought for consciousness through the blurring pain and blood loss to make sure everyone was still alive.

Violet was hurt, whimpering in the fetal position, but conscious. He’d be OK. He’d been shot before.

Mom was screaming like she was on fire, but she’d live.

Martinez had either retreated farther into the shadows or was gone. I figured as much. He got the revenge that he came for—our family was destroyed. He didn’t necessarily want me or Jane dead, but he wanted us ruined, and most of all, he wanted Jane to regret raising me.

But I was relying on the opposite to be true for Silver. The man who was my real father surely wouldn’t turn his back on me now. I scanned the room for movement, for a shadow to tell me he was still here. When I realized that he was gone, the throbbing in my side doubled—like a self-inflicted punishment.

He was supposed to save me. Just as he had at the warehouse and the apartment fire. It was my last hope of forcing him into a weakened position so that SWAT could disarm him. Then they’d take him into custody, force him to account for his involvement in all the crimes, and testify that Martinez wasn’t even dead. Maybe he’d even have a way to lure Martinez back to be held accountable as well. Liam would be released. I would be exonerated for my part in the deaths.

I was so delusional. Silver was long gone.

An explosion went off, but from what direction I had no idea. An alarm sounded soon after. Through the ringing in my ears and the swirling emergency lights all around me, I heard shouting and commotion.

I blinked over and over to fight the pain and fear washing me away. I’d managed to get stabbed in possibly the most excruciating (but safest) location on my core. So long as no one pulled this thing out and the paramedics got here in time, I’d probably be OK, too. As long as the whole island didn’t explode.

But it was all for nothing since the two men behind all of this had fled once again—

Suddenly, someone had me by the shoulders and was pulling me under the protected cover of shadows and scaffolding—it was Silver, using me as a cover, knowing SWAT wouldn’t shoot me. Relief fought with misery for control of my emotions.

I had him. Even if it was for the briefest of moments.

He picked me up like a baby and carried me gently to a concealed corner near his escape door. I pinched my eyes shut in agony as he set me down, partially on the ground, partially on his lap.

I fought to steady my breathing before I dared reopen my eyes and look at him. A wave of shock overcame me when his pale-gray eyes met mine. The same pale-gray eyes as mine. He was suffering, too. Neither of us spoke for the seconds that stretched on like hours. And he held me like I once held little Riley Bentley after LeMarq sliced into her. In my delirious pain, my mind took me back to the bloody warehouse when Riley and I were the only two people in the world. Silver stared down at me—just like I’d done with Riley—and he silently willed me to hold on, to be brave, to know everything would be OK.

I no longer saw a man that I feared. I saw a man who cared about me and wanted me to live.

“You look so much like her.” There were tears in his eyes. At first I thought he meant Riley Bentley, until he said, “Except for the eyes.”

He meant my mother.

In the short distance between our beating hearts, I felt a connection. In another time, under another set of circumstances, I knew things could have been very different for us.

“I’m sorry, Ruby, but I have to go,” he said. “You’re going to be OK. The paramedics will be here any minute, and…” He looked up to see whether any SWAT units had made it down to this level yet. We both heard the boots coming, and he was already getting up. He could be out that door in seconds, never to be seen again.

I couldn’t let him slip away now. “Wait,” I whispered. “You can’t go.”

He had to be held accountable for my father Jack Rose’s death. He had to provide testimony on Martinez to let Liam go.

“I’m sorry,” he said, now crouching over me. “For Jack, for everything. But you have to understand, those SWAT men will kill me without blinking. Martinez set me up. I now realize that he’s the explosives guy. The traps lining this place today are the same ones I saw the day I came here to talk to Jack. Martinez made me believe that Jack had set the traps for me, while making Jack think I set the traps for him. And it had to be Martinez who set up the meeting—not Jack. He wants this to end badly for me so I can’t track him down and make him pay.”

So Silver didn’t kill Jack.

“If that’s true,” I said, “then I’ll protect you. But you can’t leave. Not again.” Not like when I was a baby, and not like the nights when I killed those men and was left wondering why.

I steadied the gun still clutched in my hand and slid it into his lower abdomen. The same place where I’d been stabbed and where his bulletproof vest ended. I took a hard look into those eyes that tore me apart. If I had to, I’d hurt him, but this ended now.

“Please, Ruby, you don’t understand,” he begged. If he really wanted to, he could’ve overpowered me.

“You’re right. I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “And I certainly don’t understand what kind of agreement you had with a psychotic madman like Martinez.”

“Ruby,” he said calmly. “Our agreement was that if I promised to come alone and unarmed today, then he wouldn’t kill you. I’d give my life for you. To keep you safe. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to be a part of your life. In my mind, you’ve always been that little girl at the door. The one I could see, but never hold. And it kills me to be holding you like this. Everything I did was to protect you—from pain, from prosecution, from Martinez. And I’m sorry that I failed.”

Could he be telling the truth? He wasn’t working with Martinez but against him? Was he lying?

“Then don’t make me shoot you,” I whispered through the pain.

And as SWAT rushed in and tore Silver away from me, I screamed at them not to hurt him. But as they violently forced him to the ground with his hands behind his back, I realized—

We’d all lost.

“Are you sure this is OK?” I asked Dr. T as she pulled into her garage.

“Stop asking that,” she said, smiling.

“I’ve never been homeless before.” I took my seatbelt off and grimaced at the pain. The eleven stitches in my left side were still tender, and the Ibuprofen wasn’t helping like I’d hoped. I’d told myself I was only allowed to take the good stuff for a week. When they discharged me, I wanted to be “clean.” I wanted to see the world with fresh eyes. The holiday season had come and gone, a new year had begun, and I needed a fresh start.