Page 106 of Born in Sin

Shock, she thought. The word feeling familiar yet frightening. Why?

Words swirled past her like smoke. Her heart stumbled, a fluttering bird inside a collapsing cage.

There was a pressure in her chest, a terrible tightness. The weight on it wasn’t moving.

A sudden, piercing pain near her collarbone had her gasping. Sharp. Burning. A needle? A knife? She didn’t know.

There was a hiss—air escaping. Her lungs pulled in a thin stream of oxygen. Not enough. But it was better. A little.

“Lung decompressing. Bag her—she’s barely ventilating.” Amay was starting to sound a little less calm.

Oxygen flooded in through a mask clamped over her face. She could feel the paramedic squeezing some kind of bag, forcing air into her damaged lung.

“Pulse ox coming up. She’s holding.”

She could feel his hand in hers. His thumb brushing over her knuckles, grounding her to the here and now.

The ambulance took a sharp turn and Cara moaned as her body was jostled.

“I know, baby,” Virat murmured. “I know it hurts.”

No, you don’t, she thought petulantly. You’re not the one who got shot.

Someone pressed harder on her side. She moaned again as she felt them packing gauze into the wound, sealing her flesh with gloved hands slick with her own blood.

“Seal that entry wound, occlusive dressing, now!” Amay grunted. “Move!”

She felt hands change against her side, the touch more confident but also gentle. Amay was the sweetest, she thought, her thoughts floating away like cotton on a cloud.

“Stay with me, Celi. Please.”

Her mouth moved. She thought it did. Every word felt like it scraped her throat raw.

“Vir.”

He bent low, his ear to her lips. “Yes, baby?” His voice was frantically urgent.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I will always love you.”

“You promised you’d never leave me.” His voice was raw with anguish. “You promised.”

I won’t, she tried to say but she couldn’t.

She wanted to tell him so much. She wanted to tell him that he was the most amazing man in the world. She wanted to tell him that if he couldn’t step into the light with her, she’d live in the shadows with him.

All she wanted was to be with him. There was no lifetime in which she wouldn’t choose him. She should tell him that. She tried, but the words wouldn’t come.

Virat’s face swam in her view, blurry, watery but there. Always there. Even when he wasn’t, he was there. She wouldn’t leave him. She couldn’t leave him.

But she was so tired. So, very tired.

They’d done it, she thought. It began with her and it ended with her.

It had ended with her. Tonight.

Darkness curled in at the edges of her vision. Soft, slow, inescapable. She was so tired. The darkness crept forward, taking the blurry sight of his face with it.

And she let go.