“Drink this, Sasha,” I say.
He’s unconscious, but I don’t leave him alone. I nudge him and pinch his arm.
Moments pass, and his lids flutter.
“Drink, Sasha. Please.”
Through a heavy-lidded gaze, he seems to recognize me.
“Raven.”
He’s called me that once before. I’ve got a Poe obsession, and because I’ve been in a dark place, I’ve started dying my hair black. I didn’t know Sasha read Poe. I didn’t know Sasha read anything.
“Drink this,” I insist, pushing the straw past his lips.
He sucks on it. The bitter solution of watered-down pill fragments rises and enters his mouth. He swallows.
“More,” I say.
It goes on like this. I’m relentless. For close to an hour, I badger him until there is no medicine left. Then I pour Gatorade into the cup and start again.
His body is a furnace. I wipe him down with a damp soapy cloth and speak softly to him. I know he doesn’t comprehend any of what I’m telling him. He’s in a shadowy place, halfway to the grave. He probably deserves to die for all the bad things he’s done.
But I don’t care what he deserves. I whisper the same things into his ear over and over. “Fight. It’s what you do, so fight. And stay here, Sasha. Stay.”
He settles, and I rest my head on the mattress next to his.
I don’t know him well and don’t really like any of them, but he’s acted as my bodyguard a lot recently and I’m not letting him die without a fight. I can’t because I have a secret that I’ll never admit to anyone.
I’m the reason he got shot in the first place.
Chapter One
2020
Anvil
