“I’d ruin it for you.”
“Ruin what.”
“Your death wish.” Her eyes cut like frost. “I’d make staying alive more painful, more inconvenient, and more irritating than dying ever could be. Every. Single. Day. Until you begged for mercy.”
“Bossy,” I croak.
“Yeah, you can bet on it,” she says, and her mouth’s such a hard line, it seems like she really means it. “Now shut up and help me. My flat isn’t far.”
Somewhere in the background, those hounds of Rey’s are still onto us.
“You’re going against Rey’s crew?” the jukebox guy’s voice bellows from inside. They’re not getting out of the bar, probably trying to decide if it’s worth bringing this fight into the street where cops might notice. But it won’t stop them for long.
Rhea presses harder on the wound and calls back without even blinking: “Yeah. We are.”
The alley goes quiet after that.
Then someone laughs from inside. Long. Mean.
“You’ll regret it, sweetheart,” he calls. “Rey don’t forget.”
The door slams. Their footsteps fade like a threat on layaway.
Rhea exhales.
I don’t.
“Keep pressure here,” she orders, guiding my trembling hands over the sodden fabric. “And don’t you dare close your eyes.”
Did she just go against an entire goddamn street gang to save my sorry ass?
Yes. Yes, she did.
“You’re insane,” I rasp.
She’s so fucking good. Not like just good-girl good. Actual good. Like she was built in a lab where people still believed in decency. Like the people they write poems about.
And just like that, Lark ghosts her way into my head. Lark, with the half-fixed Camaro and the smile sharp enough to peel paint. Not a saint. Just a kid with too much spark and not enough armor. Now she’s dust and quiet. No one remembers her name except me.
She was sixteen.
I was sixteen.
Too young. Too dumb. Too sure I was invincible.
I killed her.
Am I now killing someone again?
Dragging another girl into my wreckage. Into the chaos that follows me like a goddamn stray. I swore I’d never do this again. I swore I’d keep it shallow, keep it skin-deep. Fuck, run, forget.
But Rhea isn’t Lark.
She’s not some street rat chasing the rush.
She’s really different.
Don’t be greedy, Talon. Don’t you fucking dare.
