Page 42

42

Ronan

I hear the sound of tires rolling up the driveway several hours after hanging up the phone with Ken.

My heart aches, and I fear what’s coming. I wonder if I’ve been using my trauma as a justification for all the wrong I’ve done. Maybe I deserve everything that’s happened, and everything that’s about to. I just wish it hadn’t come from someone who helped me lower my walls, someone who made me feel worthy of a life different from the one I was dealt.

The fucked-up part is I still love her.

She probably thought she had no choice, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Why couldn’t she just trust I would’ve taken care of it—taken care of her .

The sound of her rushing feet coming to the door has me slowly leaning from the counter. I had kept the house unlocked, so when she wiggles the doorknob, she’s capable of coming right through it.

Her eyes are bloodshot, dried tears streaked down her cheeks.

I narrow my gaze, and say in a low tone, “You ignored me.”

“We need to go.” She quickly tries to rush past me toward the hallway, but I don’t allow for it, and grab onto her upper arm. Dragging her back in front of me, she stares up at me. “Please… we have to go. I can explain everything—”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit too late for that, Cal?” My stomach churns with the look she gives me, and I’m angered more at my heart for wanting to comfort her.

“No… it isn’t too late. We can run, we need to run!”

I narrow my eyes at her and go to open my mouth when she reaches into her back pocket. She pulls out a syringe with an orange cap over the needle, and I step back, dropping her arm from my grasp.

She shakes her head, and moves to the counter, putting it down.

“I fucked up. I did.” Both of her hands come together, lacing her fingers and I could swear she was ready to fall to her knees. “Ronan, you have to believe me when I tell you I never wanted this.”

Looking over her shoulder, I peer out the windows, now swallowed by the darkness of the night. There are people out there, I can just fucking feel it. It’s like the darkness beyond feels alive, thick and unsettling.

My skin prickles, because I know that there are eyes on us. I’ve never been paranoid, but my time around danger has taught me to always follow my gut. It’s that silent, suffocating tension about being watched without seeing who’s watching, that gives me goosebumps.

I bring my attention back down to her, and those tears of hers continue to flow. “We’ve been running these woods for weeks…” she whispers. “We need to go… We need to try… I couldn’t call you… They…”

Lifting my hand to her cheek, she flinches. “Oh, baby girl.” I sigh and lean in to place my forehead against hers. “You should’ve just told me.”

“R-Ronan, please. We need to run.”

I can’t assume that whoever these people are don’t have guns. They’d shoot us like wild animals out there. I’ve got a better chance here, and it puts her in less danger.

Pressing my lips between her brow, I shake my head. “What was worth killing me for?”

Her knees give out, but I grab quickly to her arm once more and keep her standing. She grabs onto my shirt and buries her face into my chest.

My eyes return to the slightly cracked front door.

“Nothing… I… They have Genevieve…”

This feeling of weightlessness overtakes my insides. Is this what it feels like knowing that I’m likely going to die? My heart is thrashing around, threatening to knock me out. I feel warm—more so than normal.

“How many are there?” I ask, wrapping my arms around her head and shifting my gaze from one window, to the next, and then the next. The continued, eerie quiet beyond them fills me with a sense of dread, an impending doom.

They sent her in here to kill me or die by my hands because they had to know I wouldn’t just lay down and allow for her to do it.

“A lot…” She lifts her head, and I look down at her. “I’m sorry…”

My heart aches, because I know she is. This isn’t a lie, and I wish that it were.

“The gun is on the center stool,” I whisper into her ear. Her body shakes under my hold, and I close my eyes.

“Tell me you hate me, because that’s what I deserve.” She chokes on a sob as she puts her hands flat against my chest. I feel nothing but the beautiful tingle that her touch now elicits. It’s the sensation I hoped to have until I died of old age.

“I need to hurt now, because death will be my relief.”

Then I hear several sets of footsteps hitting our wooden porch.

I shake my head. “No, I can’t ever lie to you. Plus… telling you the truth will hurt you worse.” Her full weight bears down on me, and with my free hand I wrap it around her throat. “I love you, Calista, even now.”

Her eyes round and she goes to put her arms around me, but I don’t give her the chance. I toss her to the side just as the door is kicked open.

I take the short distance to the first person stepping in, a gun raising in his hand. I’m there before it can fire straight and thrust his arm right into the air. The sound of it firing has Calista screaming.

Driving my forehead into the guy’s nose, I close the distance he makes between us by stepping back to uppercut his elbow, dislocating it. He drops the gun, and just as the thump of it hits the wooden floor, I swing him hard against the wall, his head bouncing off it. Grabbing his hair, I slam his face into the hardwood floor. His body goes limp, but I don’t wait to see if he’s unconscious. I’m now refocusing on another coming through the door.

The second comes in with a third, and I’m capable of getting a swing on the closest. The hit is right through his arms and into his nose, causing him to fumble back. Unfortunately, the second gets his gun off, and a sharp pain shreds through my shoulder.

“Ronan!!”

I ignore her shout and use my good shoulder to ram into the one that just shot me. He falls into our table, and I punch at his hand holding the gun. It dislodges, but I know I’m way over my head here. Another bullet rings out, and fire erupts right up my back.

“Stop! Stop, please!”

When I hear a third bullet ring, I don’t feel the pain it brings. My gaze shoots over to Cal, who is holding the pistol. It’s aimed at the door, and as she shakes violently, I can tell she won’t be firing it again.

Black dots dance across my vision and it’s difficult to register how I got to the floor. It could have been from the punch to my face, but equally the bullet that entered somewhere in my back. The floor shakes as I watch Calista run toward me.

Another loud crack of a gun firing accompanies a sharp pain in my leg. My vision blurs as I beg, plead, for the numbness to hurry and spread through my entire body.

I hiss through my teeth, dragging myself only a mere inch before a body falls beside me, grabbing onto my head and screaming out words that I can’t quite put together.

I’m pretty sure I’m on the verge of blacking out, which isn’t good. If that happens, my fight is gone, and so is my life.

“Damnit…” I sputter out.

A wet hand grabs my cheek and turns me. Cal takes up my entire world, and while I’m angry at her for not trusting me, she’s all I want to see while I’m dying.

The knowledge I’ll never see her again brings heat to my eyes. But what has them spilling over is I won’t be seeing my brother again, and I swore I thought I’d have not cared but it seems I do. I guess I was ready to start over, to try and forgive him.

I suppose the bright side for him is he at least got to say goodbye this time.

“I’m so fucking sorry…” she says through her sobs. “I-I’ll be with you soon… you can h-hate o-or love me”—she leans forward and grips my entire head in a hug—“in Hell, together.”

Her trembling lips press against mine and I smile.

“I’ll… bring the paint…” I whisper.

I’m dying, and I swore I was ready to finally live .