Kym doesn’t move at first. She holds him like if she just keeps pressing, keeps willing, he might start breathing again. Then the sound leaves her, a low, cracked noise that makes my own chest tear open.
She clutches her brother like she’s never hated anyone more.
And never loved anyone harder.
In an instant, I’m on my knees beside her, blood soaking through my dress where it touches the ground. “Kym—” I reach for her, uselessly.
She looks up at me, and it’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Her face streaked in tears and blood, her eyes wild and lost, her mouth trembling. For a second I think she might scream. Instead, she says nothing at all. Just shakes.
And then her chin wobbles, breaks, and she pulls me into her, clutching me with blood-slick hands. I wrap my arms around her, and we collapse together, her sobs tearing through us both.
Kym clutches me tighter, and her voice, when it finally comes, is barely there. “He wasn’t supposed to do that.”
I don’t know what to say.
Because hedid.
Because he’sgone.
And because sometimes love doesn’t look like flowers or poetry… sometimes it looks like three bullets and a hand reaching out in the dark anyway.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, Kym clutching him, me clutching her, before the sound reaches me.
Footsteps.
“No, I swear, it sounded like—” Liam’s voice cuts off, and he stops dead in his tracks. His face drains of colour as his eyes fall on us, on the ruin.
Christian comes up behind him, his gaze sweeping the ground, cataloguing everything: the blood smeared across the stones; the still body of Anderson sprawled nearby; Paris, frozen stiff.
And then finally, they land on Will.
I watch it hit him. Watch as his whole body stiffens, like the air has been knocked out of him.
He drops to his knees before I even realize what’s happening, hands already reaching, checking for a pulse, one I know he won’t find.
Liam doesn’t move as he watches. He just stands there, pale, shaking, staring at his best friend’s body in complete horror.
Then another presence cuts through the air. And I don’t even need to look to know who it is because the energy shifts, pressing down on all of us.
Kai.
His shirt’s still rumpled, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. There’s dried blood on his knuckles from earlier, and something colder in his eyes than I’ve ever seen. But that something flickers when he sees us.
When he sees Kym, and her dress soaked in crimson.
Me, still clutching her.
And then Will.
His gaze lands on the body. Lands on the blood. And stays there.
I’ve never really known what it looks like when a person comes undone. Not really. Not in a way you can name or describe.
But now, I do.
Because I’m watching it happen, right here. To him.
He takes one step forward, and his mouth opens like he’s about to say something, a question, maybe, or a denial, but no words come out.
