I don’t think.
I fight.
I launch myself toward the masked man with a cry I don’t recognize, part terror, part fury, part memory coming back in one explosive realization:
I loved Ledger Riot Masters.And I still do.
I slam the blade toward the attacker’s arm.He jerks back.Riot lunges with me.And together, e knock the gun from the bastard’s hand.
It clatters across the concrete.
The man snarls, stepping back, recalculating, then flees through the emergency hatch he came from.
Riot surges after him.“No!”I shout.“Riot, don’t!”
He stops.
Turns.
Breathing hard.Bleeding.Shaking.
But alive.
And his eyes land on me like it hurts him to look.
“Kelly,” he rasps, voice breaking.“You remembered.”
I nod, tears streaming.“I remembered us.”
And he falls to his knees like his body can’t hold the weight of that truth.
Twenty-One
Ledger
I didn’t realize I was dead inside until I experienced life with her.I won’t lose her again.
Idrop to my knees before I understand why.I hear the echo of the hatch slamming as the bastard escapes back into the storm.I hear the ring of spent shells rolling across concrete.I hear the generators kicking back on in hiccupped bursts.
But all of it is background noise.
Because she’s standing there shaking, crying, breathing hard, and thankfully alive.
Alive because she fought.Alive because she remembered.Alive because she ran toward me instead of away.
My hands shake so violently I have to curl them into fists just to stay upright.
“Ledger,” Kelly’s voice comes out soft, cracked at the edges.“Hey.Hey, look at me.”
I lift my head.She’s right in front of me, kneeling before I can stop her.With her hands reaching for my face like she’s desperate to touch me, like she has to check I’m real, check I didn’t disappear while she blinked.
Her palms land on my cheeks.I flinch.Not from pain, from relief.From the unbearable crash of everything I just came close to losing.I had a taste of life without her and I won’t survive going through it again.
“Don’t,” I choke out, voice shredded.“Don’t do that.”
She frowns, breath hitching.“Do what?”
“Run into a fight.Charge at danger.Get between me and a fucking gun.”
