Chapter 21 - The Fall of Blackwood
Julian crashed into Alexander with bone-crushing force, sending both of them careening through the fractured glass railing of the conservatory.
I screamed, scrambling forward on my hands and knees over broken glass, my palms bleeding as I reached the edge.
They hadn’t fallen into the abyss—not yet. They had landed on the narrow maintenance scaffolding ten feet below, hanging suspended over the sheer rocky gorge. The mountain river roared hungrily beneath them, churning white foam against jagged granite boulders in the pitch-black darkness.
Alexander was bleeding from the nose and mouth, snarling like a cornered animal as he threw wild, vicious punches into Julian’s injured shoulder. Julian grunted, blood spraying from his lips, but he refused to give an inch. He locked his good arm around Alexander’s neck, driving him against the outer edge of the rusted iron grate.
“You think you can save them?” Alexander screamed, clawing at Julian’s eyes. “I planted thermite along the cliff face! In two minutes, this whole mountain collapses into the gorge! You’re dying with me, brother!”
“Maybe,” Julian gasped, his grip tightening like an iron vice. “But Elena and Maya will live.”
“Julian, no!” I cried, leaning over the shattered balustrade. “Don’t do it! Climb up!”
Julian looked up at me through the rain of sparks and blowing mist. For a split second, the ferocious warrior vanished, leaving only the man who had held me in the dark, the man who had promised that my broken past would never define my future.
Alexander reached into his boot, pulling a concealed ceramic blade, and drove it deep into Julian’s side.
Julian gasped, but instead of recoiling, he used the momentum to drive Alexander backward. The rusted bolts holding the scaffolding to the bedrock groaned, shearing off one by one with deafening metallic snaps.
“If I go to hell,” Julian whispered directly into his brother’s ear, “I’m dragging you down with me.”
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With a final, desperate heave, Julian threw Alexander over the guardrail.
Alexander’s arrogant scream cut through the night air, fading into the dark canyon below until a sickening thud silenced him forever against the river rocks.