My lip split open. My eye swelled shut. My hoodie soaked in something warm and sticky and not just mine.
Still—
I whispered through the blood in my mouth, “Please. Just leave them alone.”
He spat beside my face.
“Them?” He snarled. “Bitch, you think they give a fuck about you? You’re already forgotten.”
He hit me one last time. The lights dimmed. The pain stayed. He left me on the ground. Didn’t check if I was breathing. Didn’t care.
They both disappeared into the dark, Callum still refusing to look back. Footsteps echoed. Then nothing.The silence that followed felt thicker than the blood in my mouth.
I didn’t pass out. I wanted to. Instead—I crawled. One elbow. One breath. One drag of a leg that wouldn’t move. I curled my throbbing hand to my chest. The other I reached out, digging my nails against the asphalt and with trembling muscles inched my way forward.
I reached for my phone.
I tried to grab it. Missed.
Tried again.
My fingers barely worked. I pressed it to my chest. Couldn't lift it to my face. Red and black danced in front of my eyes.
I kept crawling. Out of the alley. Into the open. Somewhere between two dumpsters, I collapsed against a wall and vomited. Blood. Mucus. Bile. I couldn’t even cry.
I pressed my cheek to the cold concrete. It was the only thing that didn’t burn. My breath rattled. My ribs screamed. My leg wouldn’t move properly. Just emptiness. Just numb.
I saw the stars above me, just barely. They didn’t feel real. Nothing did. Except one thing. His name. It slipped past my lips like a prayer. Like a curse. “Wolfe.”
Because he was the only thing I couldn’t scrub from my skin. And the only thing I was still trying to protect. Then everything went still.
Darkness found me, curled around the fallen rubbish. It was the only thing that did. A fragment of thought pushed in. The book was still safe. And they didn’t have the brothers. Not yet.
I lay there. I don’t know how long. Minutes maybe. A lifetime. The alley was too quiet. Too still. Like the air didn’t even want to touch me anymore. I rolled to my side, breath hitching. My arm dragged behind me uselessly, hand curled like it didn’t remember how to be a hand.
I pulled myself forward. Elbow, then knee. Elbow again. Each inch felt stolen. My left leg cruel and unmoving. Couldn’t feel anything but cold, shame, and the weight of the blood leaking through Wolfe’s hoodie.
I saw headlights.
For a second, I thought—maybe.
Maybe he came. Maybe he got the message. Maybe he?—
No.
The car turned the other way. Tires whispered down wet pavement. The silence closed around me again. I reached for something glinting under the dumpster. My phone. Or what was left of it. Shattered screen. Battery blinking red.
I pulled it to my chest like it was sacred. Like maybe he’d still read it. Maybe he’d still know I tried.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
It wasn’t enough. But it was all I had. My head dropped to the concrete. The stars above me blurred. My breath rasped in time with the pulse in my ribs.
“If I die here,” I thought, “let it just be me. Not them.”
Then, softly?—
“Wolfe.”
