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Chapter 17

Tamson

Once the rain ceased, the sky became blood red.

Blood - a fitting similarity. The sky had opened up, released its deluge of tears, and left behind a blotchy, red-stained face. It was as if the earth was mocking me, mocking us. A physical manifestation of our own innate convulsions. Turmoil. Pain. Agitation. The words were endless.

Words usually came easily to me. A product, I was sure, of the life I was thrown into. I once had to charm and seduce a rich heiress for a mission. Another time, I had to negotiate a hostage situation. Sarge once joked that eloquence was my middle name, but words weren’t capable of mending Addie’s flesh back together. No, for the first time in forever, words had failed me. No condolences, no placating sympathies, could save her life.

I cradled my head in my hands, tears that I would never shed burning behind my eyes. Like the rain, they wanted to release their torment onto the world. Also like the rain, the tears could be fatal. Not could.Would. If I started, I would never stop.

Sitting in the hallway, outside Adelaide’s bedroom door, I heard Doc’s muffled voice as he said something to Sarge. Only our team leader had been allowed inside the room, overseeing the doctor’s treatment of the girl we all loved.

Doc had incentive to treat her - if she died, he died. We died.

Everyone would fucking die.

Calax paced in front of me, his agitation and restlessness indisputable. The man was five-seconds away from losing his mind. His entire body was built from tension. The muscles flexed, the clenched jaw, the narrowed eyes, the hands curled into fists. He was terrifying - a beast in desperate need of a kiss from his beauty.

But a fucking kiss wouldn’t be enough to wake her.

My team had always told me I was too pessimistic, too cynical. I wished I could refute their claim, but my mind kept replaying the moment the bullet speared her stomach. Despondent whimpers had escaped her blood-caked lips, the sound threatening to haunt me until the day I died.

It should’ve been me.

That was the prominent thought battling for dominance in my head. It drowned out all others, even my fear and heartache.

Guilt.

Shame.

Love.

It should’ve been me.

It was no wonder she hadn’t picked me; I hadn’t even been able to protect her. She had relied on me, and I had failed her. Like I had failed my Grandma.

I was such a fuck-up. Like a parasite, I latched helplessly onto the only living, breathing entity in my life. My damn heart had claimed her as my own, completely ignoring the logical rebuttal from my brain that reminded me, repeatedly, of all of the reasons why she couldn’t be mine. Did my heart listen? No.

And her last moments with me…

I had been a monster. When she woke up - and despite my pessimistic nature, I would be damned if she didn’t - she would hate me for the way I treated her.

Ifshe woke up…

My stomach clenched and tightened, threatening to expel the contents of my breakfast. How could everything change so suddenly? So drastically? So badly? Just yesterday, she had been laughing over something Ronan had said and baking with Asher. She had been curled up with Ryder on the sofa in a whispered conversation and in Calax’s embrace. She had been teasing Sarge and practicing her sign language with Declan. She had been putting a tentative hand through my own unruly red curls, commenting on how soft they looked.

It was almost comical how quickly things could change.

Calax spun to face me abruptly, face pale and eyes wild. Unhinged. Despite his appearance, his gruff voice was uncharacteristically soft.

“I can’t lose her.”

I knew what he wanted.

He wanted me to tell him that everything was going to be okay, that she was going to open her eyes and smile up at him. But I couldn’t. My own thoughts were running pervasive within my head, unattended, and I couldn’t reel them back in. Instead of answering him, I stared stoutly ahead.

He couldn’t lose her. I couldn’t lose her. Fallon couldn’t lose her. None of us could fucking lose her. The reality was, wewouldlose her. Unless Doc was some sort of miracle worker.