Page 31

“ A lex, what does the antidote look like?” I yell from the other end of the basement as I ruffle through the old cabinet in the corner.

She doesn’t say a word and Fintan slaps her cheek in quick succession, trying to keep her awake as long as possible. We’re wasting time.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“Y-you’ll find it. I…” she mutters, her voice strained and tired as she loses consciousness. I can see the pain she hides behind the small smile on her face, and it fucking kills me. We are not so different. I see that now.

Shit, I can’t do this. What if she dies? I refuse to die down here.

During my frantic search for anything that I assume looks like an antidote to God knows what she injected herself with, I realize that I care about her.

Despite all that she’s done. Despite what we’ve done to her. I fucking care.

Fintan finally leaves her side and helps me tear this place apart.

“Wait! Stop. We need to think,” I say to Fintan as he searches, his frantic, panicked movements matching my own.

“We don’t have time, Kieran. Look at her!

We don’t know what was in that fucking syringe; she could die if we waste too much time! ”

Fuck, I can’t. I can’t watch her die.

My chest constricts painfully and there’s a knot in my stomach.

I’m going to be sick. Don’t do this to us, little Dove.

“Alex, please wake up! Please tell me how to save you,” I plead, rushing over and kneeling in front of her as I take her face in my hands.

Just as I’m about to lose my fucking mind, I hear her phone vibrate. I find it tucked in one of her stockings and waste no time pulling it out. It’s a voice message from herself. She must have recorded it while we were passed out earlier and somehow set a timer to send it to her own phone.

What the fuck is going on?

“Fintan!” I yell, gesturing for him to come closer as I step toward him with the recording ready to play. “What’s this?” Fintan questions, looking as confused and terrified as I feel.

I press ‘play’ and her voice echoes through the device. “It’s a phrase. You will find it when you face your feelings, Kai,” her voice sounding like a sad whisper. Hearing my nickname slip from her lips, shatters my heart in an instant.

“Is there something I’m missing? Why is she only mentioning you? What feelings?” Fintan asks and right now, he is everything but calm.

“I-I don’t know. Fuck!” I growl. “Kieran?” He asks, his voice clipped and rushed. I stare at her seemingly lifeless form as I bend down and tuck her hair behind her ear.

“You’ll find it when you face your feelings,” I whisper as I stand next to him, watching her chest rise and fall slowly. “What?” he asks, and I turn to face him, although struggling to tear my eyes from Alex’s face. “She said it’s a phrase. The antidote is a phrase,” I stammer.

“I heard but that makes no sense. How can a phrase help us in this fucked up situation?” he asks, also feeling the heavy pressure of our time running out. “What feelings?” he adds when I stay silent.

He looks as broken, haunted and tortured as I feel. “I don’t fucking know!” I rush out. Staring into his eyes, I desperately try to keep a clear head. The moment his panicked expression changes to concern, I realize what she meant.

I need them. I have feelings for him, and she has been exploring them with me. Forcing me to face them without judgement in the most twisted way.

Fuck, I don’t know how to feel. How do I do this?

“Kieran, our time is running out. If she dies, we die,” Fintan urges as he grabs onto my shoulders and shakes me out of my own hellish thoughts.

“I have feelings for her, Fin. I’ve had them since that night. I…I don’t know how to feel.”

Fintan blinks incredulously for a moment. “I know what you mean, brother. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It felt irrelevant. I’ve had many girls in that building before to make content for Hush. I didn’t care about any of them. There’s something about her that I can’t shake.”

“I get it, but that can’t be all there is to it. Something else is going on. What is it? Kai, tell me what I’m missing. Please!”

“Fintan,” I start, taking a deep breath as I ready myself for what I am about to say, consequences be damned. “I love you. I’m in love with you.”

When the words leave my mouth, something floods the room through the vents as if it was triggered by my confession. The scent of Ammonia filters through the basement.

We cough as we pull off our t-shirts to hold them over our airways.

“Kieran, there!” Fintan yells, his voice muffled by his shirt as he points to the bottom of the stairs. Two gas masks rest on the concrete and we rush over, strapping them on as quickly as we can.

Breathing heavily as we compose ourselves for a moment, I realize that Alex has been inhaling the gas and there are only two masks.

“Wait, she was wearing one when we woke up in the chairs. Wasn’t she?” I ask Kieran in a panicked tone. “It smells like gallons of bleach is being pumped through the vents, surely that can’t be healthy. Help me look for the other mask!”

The cloud of ammonia is fogging up the outside of the eye holes in the mask and it’s making it nearly impossible to see more than a few feet in front of me.

The blue lights do nothing to help the visibility, and I reluctantly scramble around, feeling along the floor for the mask Alex wore earlier.

Kieran joins in the search and before long, the steady flow of gas slows from the vents, and we come to the shattering realization that we likely took too long to find it.

We move until we find Alex, and we sit together at her feet. I take Kieran’s hand in mine, and we stay like that, letting everything sink in.

He’s in love with me.