Page 60 of Ruin My Life (Blood & Betrayal #1)

I gag, choking on heat and copper and smoke. I shove him off me with a scream that tears through my raw throat. My muscles quiver, groan, burn—

But I get him off.

He thuds to the carpet. Lifeless.

It’s over.

It’s finally over.

I lie there for a second, dragging air into my lungs.

My head pounds. I can feel the blood loss clawing at my edges—warm blood still spilling out of my stomach as my body goes cold, fingers numb.

When I lift my shirt, it’s soaked through.

The wound gushes harder now without the blade there to plug it shut.

Fuck. Not good.

I clamp my hand over it, but pain flares—white-hot, sickening, unstoppable.

Across the room, the woman from earlier still lies motionless. For a moment, I think she might even be dead.

But then—she stirs.

I crawl to her, dragging myself on trembling elbows, slick with sweat and blood. I grip her shoulder, shaking her gently at first, then harder.

“Wake up, come on,” I rasp, my breaths tearing inside my throat. “You need to wake up. ”

She groans, head rolling to the side. Blood beads along her hairline where Connor struck her. Her eyes flicker open—confused, glazed.

“What… happened?” she mumbles. “Who are you?”

“Questions later,” I snap. “We have to get out of here.”

The fire has swallowed the walls. It hisses through the carpet, tongues of flame crawling over furniture like they’re hunting us down. Heat wraps around my limbs in suffocating waves.

I push to my feet. The woman scrambles up too, half-stumbling behind me.

The back of the house is built the same as Rebecka’s. Floor-to-ceiling windows. All glass.

Our only chance.

I limp to them, brace myself—slam my boot heel against the pane.

Thud.

Nothing.

Thud. Still nothing.

Triple-pane glass. Of course it is.

“Stay here,” I rasp, then stagger back to Connor’s corpse.

I need his gun. It’s our only chance to break the window. But it’s not in his hand. Not near him. I groan, bend over with shaking arms—roll his dead weight just enough—

There. Under him. Mired in blood and broken glass.

I reach for it, my fingers inches from the grip—

Crreeeaaaak.

Something overhead groans. Deep. Like a warning.

A beam. Charred black, half-eaten by flame.

It snaps loose—comes crashing down, faster than I can move. I try to roll away, but it lands on my leg, pinning my calf to the carpet.

Crack.

Red hot pain explodes up my leg.

“Fuck!” I scream, my raw and strangled voice swallowed by smoke and the roar of fire closing in .

“Oh god! Are you okay?” the woman cries, coughing as she drops beside me. Her eyes darting from the splintered beam pinning my leg to the pistol buried under my bloody hand.

She braces her palms against the beam. Tries to lift it. Her fingers slip on scorched wood and ash. It doesn’t budge.

It won’t.

It’s a foot thick, heavy enough to break bone. Maybe it already has. I can’t feel half my leg. Can barely lift my head.

If I wasn’t already half-conscious, bleeding out, maybe I’d be able to help her push it off—

But I am.

It’s too late.

“I can’t lift it,” she sobs, tears streaking through the soot smeared across her face. “I can’t—”

“Stand back,” I whisper, my voice breaking.

She blinks at me with wide, hollow eyes—then scrambles to her feet and backs away.

My hand trembles as I empty the clip into the window— BANG, BANG, BANG! —each shot carving fractures that spiderweb across one another, begging to shatter.

I drop the gun. My fingers are too numb to feel it leave my hand. “Grab that lamp,” I rasp, nodding at the antique one with the heavy brass base in the corner. “Swing it into the glass until it breaks. Then you run. Get out before this place comes down.”

She hesitates, shaking, her eyes flicking between me and the flames eating the ceiling. “But what about you?”

I shake my head. “I’m not getting out of this,” I say, my voice steady despite how broken it feels. “But you can.”

Her eyes fill again. Tears spill faster than she can swipe them away.

She looks too much like Amie. It’s a cruelty and a gift all at once. Maybe that’s why I need her to live.

I couldn’t save my sister.

But maybe I can save her.

Her shoulders square suddenly—fear traded for something harder. Fierce determination .

“I’ll get help. I’ll come back,” she promises, her tone hard as steel beneath the tremor.

I nod weakly. “Okay.”

She turns to go—but stops. Looks back at me, eyes locked on mine, unflinching this time.

“Tell me your name,” she says.

The words anchor in the smoke-heavy air. For a heartbeat, I want to say it doesn’t matter. That no one will remember me. That no one’s left to care.

But that’s a lie. Damon would care.

He would want to know what happened. He would tear this island apart for the truth.

“Brie,” I whisper. “My name’s... Brie.”

She nods. “I’m Hope.”

Hope.

Of course she is.

It’s exactly what she is.

She turns, grips the lamp’s brass stem like a sledgehammer. She squares her shoulders at the shattered glass, then swings back hard—

CRASH!

The lamp punches through. Shards explode outward in a glittering cascade. Winter air blasts into the inferno behind us, slamming cold against my fevered skin—an icy slap I can barely feel through the pain.

The flames roar in response, clawing higher, greedier.

“Go!” I scream. “Run!”

Hope shrugs off her jacket, wraps it around her arm, and sweeps the jagged edges away. She throws one last look over her shoulder—eyes fierce, unbroken. “I’ll get help!” she shouts. “Hold on, okay?”

“Okay,” I whisper, but the roar of the growing fire eats my voice whole.

She disappears through the window, swallowed by blinding winter light.

Cold rushes in for a breath—then drowns in the thick curtain of smoke closing behind her .

My body is trembling. My hand still pressed to my stomach, but the sticky warmth pooling beneath me says it all.

I’m losing too much. Too fast.

My vision fuzzes at the edges, pulsing in time with my heart. Frantic. Desperate.

The flames are closing in.

But I’m cold. So cold.

I close my eyes. Try to picture the sky beyond that broken window. The one Hope just slipped through. I try to see the setting sun, the way it glitters off the waves below.

But all I see is him.

Damon.

God, I wish I could see him. Touch him. Tell him I’m sorry.

Sorry for every lie.

Sorry for getting caught.

Sorry I wasn’t stronger.

My head tips back into the carpet. Soot whirls above me like black snow. The fire roars louder, swallowing the walls. My eyelids flutter—everything feels heavy.

Stay awake. You can do this.

That voice—it doesn’t sound like mine.

It sounds like Amie .

I smile, tears dripping from the corners of my eyes.

Maybe she’s waiting for me. Maybe not.

But while everything else fades, one thing stays sharp.

This time, I won.