“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s not...your fault.” My voice sounded like it didn’t belong to me. I tried to speak again but felt so tired. I just wanted to rest my eyes—
“Lily. Eyes up here.”
His voice drifted into my head, stirring me from the edge of unconsciousness. I could see him watching through the rearview mirror as the car sped down the street. The engine rumbled beneath us.
“Keep pressure on it, Kira.”
“Y-yes. I am— No, Lily, open your eyes.” Kira’s bruised face appeared in front of mine as my head rolled to one side. My eyelids were growing heavier with every passing second.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. I was meant to be caring for her, tending to the bruises left by Aiden. She needed to know I was there for her after what she went through. I should’ve put a stop to it earlier when all the signs were there.
“I’m...sorry.” I swallowed the dryness in my mouth as my eyes slid shut. A cold shudder ran through my body.
“Dean, hurry!”
My head thumped against the window and Kira let out a cry. Her fingers pressed against my throat.
The world outside the window, its sky of blue and orange and pink, blurred into long lines of bright fluorescent light against an off-white wall.
I was lying down, people dressed in blue scrubs racing along beside me. One flashed a light across my vision. I didn’t recognize their faces. I couldn’t find Kira’s wild red hair or Dean’s beautiful eyes.
I just wanted to look at his eyes one last time.
But I was dying.
As their shouts grew distant, and the bright lights of the corridor dulled, the comfort of a different kind of darkness, cool and dreamlike, pulled me under.
Chapter 67
Dean
The memory of the blood on my hands was the only thing I could feel outside the numbness. I had scrubbed them clean repeatedly, fighting off flashbacks of the last time I was in a hospital waiting room as I watched her blood drain down the stainless-steel basin in the public restroom.
I was reliving that nightmare. The only difference was Mom was lucky the bullet lodged in her spine. Disabling her for the rest of her life, killing my unborn sister, but miraculously reducing her chances of bleeding out. There was only an entry wound to worry about.
Lily had an exit wound; a second, larger hole in her lower back that sped up the bleeding.
She was cold by the time we reached the hospital.
The sun had barely risen over the city skyline as I lifted my gaze to the newly placed, white marble headstone. Set beneath a flowering tree at the far end of the cemetery. It was eerily peaceful. Serene.
It reminded me of her.
I hadn’t slept or eaten. I was too emotionally drained. Instead, I just stood and stared, wishing I had done better. More.
I hadn’t protected her. I had failed her.
Sound crashed back in as Vince clapped a gloved hand onto my right shoulder.
“You alright?” Even murmuring, his voice was too rough for a place like this. Like he might disturb the dead.
I quickly wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my hoodie and shoved my fists into my pockets. “Yeah...”
He watched my face a little longer before his lips formed a thin line and he nodded once.
Three other guys moved the last of the soil over the freshly dug grave beneath that marble headstone while Antonio overlooked from nearby. They had been here a lot longer than me.
