Branded (Fall of Angels #1)(67)

“Finally realizing you did it all for nothing, huh?” I mutter.

“Shut up!” he yells, still waving the gun like it’s gonna scare me.

It won’t. I wasn’t scared of his gun when he still wanted to kill me, and I’m definitely not scared of it now that he knows the truth.

“You hated me because of this? Your dad’s death and that fucking Zippo?” I say, cocking my head. “Because I gotta say … that’s pretty messed up, considering you’re the killer here, and the fact that I didn’t do shit, which I’ve been trying to tell you over and over.”

“I said shut up!” he yells, still using the gun to threaten me to be quiet.

It won’t work. I know he won’t use it against me. He already tried that when he still believed I was the sole cause of his papa’s death, and now that he knows I’m not, I don’t think he has it in him to ever kill me.

Not when we both know I’m innocent … and he’s not.

“You’re cruel, Brandon. All this because I broke your heart …”

“I don’t give a damn that you did,” he hisses, walking toward me with the gun pointed straight at my heart. “At least I had a fucking heart.”

“Says the murderer,” I say, glaring back at him. “Go ahead. Shoot me. Do it. Maybe it’ll end your suffering. Or maybe not since you know I’m innocent now and you murdered two innocent boys.”

He makes a face, his nostrils flaring as his eyes flicker with an ache I’m all too familiar with.

“You can threaten me all you want, but that won’t change the truth. Killing me won’t solve anything. I’m not your problem. You are,” I say to him as he grinds his teeth.

Suddenly, he starts shooting at the ground. My eyes close as bullets ricochet all around us. I’m lucky I didn’t get hit with any of them. Sadly, he didn’t either.

“Fuck!” he yells, pacing around again.

It’s quiet for a few seconds. I’m not sure whether I should say something or keep quiet. Part of me wants to confront him with his bad deeds. Make him see how evil he is, no matter the consequences. He can’t shoot me anyway.

However, another part of me is completely choked up right now. I don’t want to get it, but I do. He’s trapped in his own lies, and now that he’s finally seeing a way out, it’s blocked by his own pride.

In order to move on, he has to admit he was wrong. Not a lot of people can do that. And on top of that, he knows he hurt me in the gravest of ways.

What he did was unforgivable, and now he has to live with it for the rest of his life. He probably hates himself right now. That, or he hates me for telling him the truth.

Either way, things can’t get any worse as we’re already at rock bottom.

The question is … how do we get out?

When I look at him, all I see is pain. As if he’s begging for release from the prison that keeps him in chains. But I can’t give that to him. I can’t because that would be an insult to my brothers’ legacies.

Even if I hated their guts, they were still my brothers. And family always sticks together, right?

I take a deep breath and wait until he’s done pacing. Maybe he’ll figure shit out on his own. After all, he can’t keep me tied up here in the middle of fucking nowhere forever.

His foot taps on the ground, and he scratches his head, sighing out loud.

“What are you gonna do now? Kill me and get rid of the evidence?”

“Just … shut it,” he says, but the look in his eyes softens immediately as if he already regrets being a dick. “Please. I need to think.”

I snort. “Shoulda done that before you actually killed someone …” I roll my eyes. “Untie me, Brandon. You know I’m innocent.”

He mulls it over a few seconds, still nervously tapping his foot.

“Brandon, look at me!” I yell when he’s staring at the ground for so long it feels like he’s forgotten about me. “Let. Me. Go.”

“And then what? You’ll kill me?” he says, shaking his head, still pacing around with the gun in his hand as though it’s a second dick he needs to hold while thinking about me.

“You owe this to me,” I say with the most honest, good-intentions voice I can muster.

But no matter what I say, I don’t seem to get through to him. It’s as if he’s completely zoned out. Away from this world.



*

Brandon



My mind is screaming at me.

I’m trying to make sense of things, but the more I think about it, the more my thoughts are becoming one jumbled mess.

I don’t know what or who to believe. Is she really as innocent as she claims to be? Or is she lying to save her own ass? But that wouldn’t make any sense. She already said she doesn’t care if she dies. She’s tried multiple times to make me shoot her.

Biting my lip, I pace around while she watches me. The look in her eyes is killing me, and I try to ignore it, but she makes it so damn hard. It’s as if she knows she’s right, and that infuriates me even more.

I can’t think like this, so I stomp toward her and grab her tight, dragging her to the car.

“What are you doing?” she shouts as I hold her wrists while untying her. Then I tie her again, this time to the car bumper.