I’m still alive.
Oh. My. God …
Did I just—
“What the fuck did you just do? Jesus…” His hands go from my arms to fisting my hair as his forehead presses to mine.
I’ve never heard such agony in his voice.
“Did you…” each word seems to rip from his throat “…did you think it was loaded?”
Reality shatters this out-of-body experience—the glass box that separated me from life. “Y-Yes,” I whisper.
I wanted to die. For one second—I wanted to die.
Pain.
Love.
Anger.
Regret.
Foronemoment… it was all too much. I wanted out. I. Wanted. To. Die.
What’s happening to me?
His nostrils flare with each breath that washes over my face. Pressing a hand to the wall next to me, he pushes off and turnstoward the trunk. “You don’t get to fucking take your own life.” He riffles through the contents.
Numbness. Foronesecond it swallowed me up. Now, I’m left drowning in an ocean of shame.
My blank stare lands on his hands shoving a loaded clip into the gun. In the next blink, he slams me back against the wall. The impact punches the breath from my lungs. Theo presses the gun to my temple much harder than I had done.
“Itake your life.Youdon’t get the fucking choice. Do you understand?” The devil dances in his eyes, cold as the metal pressed to my head. His jaw clenches while his whole body shakes, even his hand quivers as he digs the gun into my skin.
Theo or cancer?
Cancer is so unoriginal. I choose Theo.
“Then pull the trigger.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, muscles pulsing along his arms and up his neck. “Go.” His hand falls limp to his side, the gun dangles from his finger. “GO!”
I suck in a breath, suffering more from the sight of this man—eyes shut and chin down—than I would have had he pulled the trigger.
I turn and move toward the door with an unsteady gait.
“We never talk of what’s in the trunkeveragain or else…” He leaves the end hanging in the air.
I nod once then keep walking.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My name is Scarlet Stone. I think modern medicine is miraculous—as well as overrated, corrupt, and sometimes deadly. I’m not sure when doctors began to focus on treating the symptoms instead of the root cause of disease. Whenever that was, they could no longer abide by their oath to “do no harm.”
Idon’t recognizethe reflection in the mirror anymore. By all predictions, I will die in about a month. Even if this life doesn’t give me my formal eviction in thirty days, Nolan will.
Theo works on our place in between his other projects, and he seems to be on schedule with the upstairs renovations nearing completion.
