“Fuck.” Oscar falls to his knees opposite her. His hands shake as he lifts them, unsure where to put them. “What do we do?”
“Kenny?” She arches again, and I lose my fucking mind. Every tendon on her neck stands out in stark, petrifying clarity, as if she’s choking.
“Breathe,” I choke out. My hands behind her neck, lifting her. “Please, baby. I need you to breathe. Just breathe.”
Shecan’t.
Desperate, I seal my lips over hers, trying to force air into her lungs. And her lips… they taste like blood, and something rotten. “Fucking breathe, Kennedy!”
Oscar holds out his hands. “Give her to me.”
There’s so much blood. It’s everywhere. Her exposed skin is a patchwork of red and oily black as I tumble back and Oscar grabs her. He lifts, pulling Kenny into him until her back rests against his chest. His eyes meet mine. Desperation shines out of them.
“Breathe.” He barks it, his hand curling around her throat. “Now, Kennedy.Take a fucking breath.”
Her choked inhale sounds like music. Oscar is breathing heavily against her as he tips his face up, his eyes briefly closing. They’re glistening when they open. “Again.”
We wait in agonized silence as he forces our mate to pull air into our lungs. Her eyes flutter, flickering as I lean in to see.
Brown. Deep, beautiful brown. She blinks, and I see red again.
Back and forth, the colors of her eyes switch.
As if she’s fighting a war with herself that we can’t see.
“Kenny,” Jake chokes on her name. He crouches in front of him, his hands cupping her face. “Keep breathing, okay? Can you hear me?”
Her head jerks as if in confirmation, and I suck in a breath. “You keep fighting, Kennedy. Don’t you give up.”
Because she’s faltering again. Her body jerks against Oscar, twitching as her eyes begin to roll. Oscar’s hands move, gently, not pinning her. “She’s fuckingseizing.”
And his voice cracks.
“We need help.” We can’t carry her like this. I glance around for Theo. And he looks almost as bad as Kennedy, his knees buried in the ground and his eyes on her. As if he’ll never look away.
“She’s not dying,” Oscar says harshly. But his hands are so gentle. His eyes wet. “She’schanging.”
“What do you mean, changing—,”
“Into a feral,” Jake breathes. And that understanding burrows between my ribs, shreds me, fucking wrecks me.
She’s disappearing in front of us.
Jake leans forward. Her bandages, the ones she hid from us with those fucking sweaters, are unravelling with the force of her movements. Leaving ripped, bleeding, fuckingbite markson display.
As if she’s made of nothing but broken parts. Every single piece of her.
Jake flinches back from the sight of it, from the trauma written across her skin in brutal explanation.
We all do. Except for Oscar. He closes his arms around her, whispering something I can’t hear in Kenny’s ear as her jerking slows, and stops. His eyes close, and he rocks her. I focus on his lips as my vision wavers.
Stay.
He’s begging her.
Because we’re losing her to this poison. She’s slipping away in front of our fucking eyes, and we can’t stop it.
Her blink is slow. Once, then again. And her voice, it’s so slurred. Slurred, and broken. “Jake?”
