Page 62 of Ruin My Life (Blood & Betrayal #1)

Brie

“ S TAY WITH ME, B RIE.”

Damon’s voice slices through the fog.

“No more running, remember?”

No more running.

But I can’t stop. I want to. God, I want to—but it’s like trying to grip onto air. No matter how tight I hold on, something always rips me away. Makes me leave.

My fingers dig into the soaked gauze pressed to my stomach. It’s wet. Clinging. Cold instead of warm now that it’s saturated. Tremors rack through me beneath Damon’s coat, and I try to fight them—try to breathe. To stay.

I force my eyes open.

Snowy trees flicker past the window, but it’s all just movement. White and grey and black smudges. Like I’ve been pulled underwater and left to watch the world through a frozen lake.

I turn my head.

Damon .

His jaw is clenched so tight I’m afraid he’ll shatter one of his perfect teeth.

His sleeves are shoved up, muscles bunched in his forearms. The tattoos along his arms look even more like smoke, flexing and rippling as he strangles the wheel.

The flames inked across his knuckles pulse with rage. With fear.

“Talk to me, mi rosa, ” he says. Begs. “Please.”

I try.

I open my mouth.

But the words don’t come .

My tongue feels foreign, too heavy to lift. My throat is raw and dry—like I’ve swallowed fistfuls of sand that are now scraping up and down my windpipe with every breath.

Another shiver. My teeth clatter like broken porcelain.

I’m so cold.

Colder than I thought a person could feel.

Is this what dying feels like?

When I was shot, my body spared me—darkness swallowed it whole. But not this time. Now there’s no mercy. Just the slow slide under.

Maybe my body knows that if I fall asleep now… I won’t wake up again.

How many times can someone cheat death before it catches up?

When does survival stop being luck and start becoming legend?

When do you go from human to myth?

My mind is racing—thoughts coming too fast, too loud, too much—while my body drags behind, molasses slow. My head heavy. My mind distant.

Faces flash through my mind like broken film reels.

Mom. Dad. Amie.

Then Damon. Rebecka. Monroe. Chavez. Lee.

Hope.

Even Connor. Especially Connor.

Not because he deserves to be remembered—but because he forced himself into my story. Into my pain. Tried to write the ending for me.

But this isn’t his ending to write.

More memories rise—the vivid, the painful, the cherished.

The backroom of The Speakeasy, where Damon first looked at me like I was a threat and something holy all at once. The hotel when he showed up to save me from that brute, then watched me save myself.

His condo. His bedroom. His secret place here on the island—his safe space that he let me share.

It all happened so fast. Too fast.

I want more time .

I want to go back and choose him sooner. To be with him longer. To say the words I’ve never been brave enough to say.

My lips part.

“ Damon… ”

The sound is hoarse. A whisper wrapped in broken glass.

He glances at me instantly, reaches over, squeezes my thigh. His hand is strong and warm through the blood-soaked denim.

“I’m here, mi amor. ”

My love.

He called me that this morning. I didn’t realize he meant it like this—like it might be the last time he’d ever get to say it.

Maybe it was— is .

My heart flutters painfully.

I try to speak again.

“I…” My throat burns. The words scrape up from where they’ve been buried deep. “Lo…ve…”

His hand tightens.

“I know,” he says, his voice wrecked. “Say it again when this is all over, okay?”

But what if I can’t?

What if this is it?

He won’t let himself believe that. Won’t let me believe it either.

So I nod. Or try to. It’s more of a twitch than anything else.

But he sees it. And for now… that’s enough.

Suddenly, I’m in his arms again.

One second he’s in the driver’s seat, and the next, he’s tearing open the passenger door, lifting me carefully against his chest.

He doesn’t pull his coat off me. He leaves it bundled tight, like it might shield me from the rest of the world.

It smells like him. Spice, amber, and lavender. That scent I’ve come to crave .

The orange glow of the setting sun vanishes in a blink, and suddenly it’s swallowed by stark blue ceiling light and sterile air.

“I need help!” Damon’s voice crashes through the ER, sharper than the beeping, the chatter, the fluorescent hum. “Someone help! My wife is dying!”

Wife.

The word hits deeper than the pain.

Is that what I’d have been, if life had given us time?

If the universe hadn’t dragged us together just to tear us apart twice as fast?

Hands appear. Doors swing open. I’m floating, half-conscious, dragged through too many hallways to count. My head lolls. I feel the shift when they lay me on a gurney, but all I can focus on is the warmth of Damon’s hand locked around mine.

I try to squeeze. I hope I squeeze.

But I can’t tell if he feels it. I can’t even tell if I moved at all.

Words blur past me. Too many. Too fast. None of them stick when I try to pin them down into full sentences.

Fire. New York. Blood. Knife. Transport. Risk. Surgery.

Surgery. Again .

Another scar for the collection I never wanted.

But this one…

Maybe it’s different.

Maybe, if I live to see it, it won’t be just survival.

It’ll be proof. A reminder that I won.

Everything else slips into fog. The hands that cut away my shirt, my jeans. That scrub the ash and blood from my skin. That press into my wounds and wait for me to react.

Do I react? I don’t know.

Then—

The lights go out.

My eyes flutter open in the dark and I don’t see the ceiling.

I see him .

Damon’s face hovers above mine, strands of dark hair falling past his forehead. His nose brushes mine—just barely .

He’s the first thing I’ve seen clearly since the beam fell.

His dark brown, bottomless eyes lock with mine.

His brow is creased in the center.

His mouth is moving. But I can’t hear him.

I try to read his lips, but I only get bits any pieces.

“Com…….ack….to..…e...my…….tle...ro..s…”

Then his lips are on mine. Warm. Gentle. But desperate.

It doesn’t feel like a kiss. It feels like resuscitation. Like he’s breathing life into me. Blood. Soul. Hope.

I try to kiss him back. To hold on.

But then—

He’s gone.

Replaced by harsh fluorescent lights.

The warmth is gone. The scent of him is gone.

Where is he? Where am I? Why am I here?

I don’t want to die. Please. Don’t let me die.

A mask slips over my face. The air flooding in is laced with something sweet. Too sweet.

I don’t want sweet. I want Damon. Bring him back.

There wasn’t enough time. We didn’t get enough time .

The edges of my vision blur—darkness curling inward like burnt paper. The world fades—

No.

This can’t be it—this can’t be how it ends .

I used to believe in fairytales.

Used to hope there was one person out there who was made for me. Born to fit with me. Cut from the same cloth. Etched from the same stone.

I still want hearts drawn in steam on the mirror. Notes on Post-its stuck to my laptop. I want coffee mugs that don’t match and bubble baths waiting after long days.

I want the bad with the good. The tears with the joy.

The quiet mornings. The chaotic nights. The mundane .

I want my chance to dance barefoot in the kitchen, surrounded by dish soap bubbles.

Damon once told me the only way this would end was in tragedy. And maybe he was right.

Because a life without him would be tragic .

But so is death without him.

The light disappears. The noise fades. The pain slips away.

Until all that remains…

Is darkness.