But fuck, he sure did pick the wrong guy for that job.
Obviously, shooting Liam wasn’t an option.
Ever.
“Ty, you don’t have to make this decision,” Liam said.
I hated not being able to gauge if he was making progress. He was still trying with the lock, so surely there must’ve still been a chance, and if he had any chance at all, that meant something.
“He could be bluffing,” Liam added, as though he knew I was thinking about my options.
He was just trying to calm me down, but I’d seen the fucking gas too. Given everything Himeros had done before that night, he didn’t seem like he needed to bluff about shit. This whole trap seemed tailored to his tastes.
We just need some more goddamn time!
If Liam did get free, he could take the gun and maybe have a chance.
Then one of us would make it.
“Oh, fuck,” I muttered as my adrenaline surged and my brain seemed to catch up with what was going on, forcing me to process it all to make this most urgent choice.
Tears rushed to my eyes as I thought of my world—all this world outside of that room: Jesse, Eric, Mom, my friends.
All those things that seemed like a dream more than anything else.
And then Liam.
I pulled myself from my thoughts because, fuck, there wasn’t much time.
Not at all.
At the very least, no matter what happened, even if it wasn’t this gun that killed me but something else this sick bastard had in mind, I just had to say it: “Liam…before I met you, I didn’t know what I wanted or who I was, but that night in PV when I looked at you, I knew something I couldn’t have vocalized back then, but now, I know I was right to care so much. Because I love you.” Despite my voice quaking before, it didn’t waver when I said those final words, because as chaotic as everything seemed in that moment, that was one thing I was sure of.
“I love you too,” Liam said, the tears in his eyes assuring me of how little time we really had.
And even under the circumstances, they felt so good.
“I don’t think you understand,” I pressed. “It’s like we’re connected on some other level, as though some part of me knows all these things about you, everything. Somehow I’ve always known them, yet I don’t know them at all.”
Fuck.
I wasn’t making any sense.
How could I explain what I felt for him? It felt so expansive, it would have taken a lifetime to say all that needed to be said about things I somehow knew deep within me. That it was like I had lived and breathed him so many times before this time, loved him more than anyone could ever love another in a million alternate realities…or past lives…or any state of being because we were fused together in some way that defied scientific explanation.
“Fifty seconds left,” Himeros interrupted.
After the timer had passed the minute mark, it began to flash, as though it were forcing me to acknowledge the urgency of these final moments.
“No, no, no.” I shuddered at the sight. “It isn’t right that we didn’t have more time,” I fought out because I knew I just had to say it all. “It isn’t fair, but every second, through all of it, all I’ve ever considered is that I feel so lucky I got to spend any of it experiencing these feelings, these emotions.”
“Thirty seconds. Ty, I would get it all out, and then make your choice.”
There was no choice to be made. I knew what I had to do. There could be no other way.
I aimed the gun at my head, placing my finger on the trigger. Tears slid down my cheeks in quick succession.
“Ty, stop it,” Liam barked, all his rage and fury coming at me in an instant, and it was painful. “No. Turn it on me, for Christ’s sake. Or just don’t.”
