“I’m getting you out of here, Sage. Right now,” I tell him. “There’s a car downstairs. Zeke and Yasmin and Eliana are waiting.”
But even as Eliana’s name leaves my mouth, I feel the awful burden of what I’m asking.Trust me. Trust me again, after I chose blood over you. After I locked you in your room and walked out to commit murder. After I let you fall from your wheelchair while I was busy sawing off a dead man’s finger.
Trust me again, even though I’ve given you every reason not to.
Sage’s jaw works from side to side. His hands grip the thin blanket pooled around his waist, knuckles bone-white against the fabric. “You left me,” he says again. “You fuckingleftme, Basti. On the floor. I couldn’t even get back into my chair. I just laid there for hours, waiting for you to come home, and you never?—”
“I know.” I swallow down a bitter, venomous taste on my tongue. “I know what I did.”
“Do you?” he laughs. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looked a lot like you chose to go after all the shit you swore you’d never touch again.”
“I did.” There’s no point in lying to him. Nor is there any point in hiding the tears surging down my cheeks, same as the ones surging down his. “I chose wrong, Sage. I wish like fuck that I didn’t, but I did, and I can’t take it back.”
His breath shudders out of him. In the dim light filtering through the barred window, his tear tracks glow.
“I’m sorry,” I add. “I’m so goddamn sorry, Sage.”
“What’s that supposed to fix?” he sneers.
“Right now? Nothing. But I’ll fix it all. I swear to God I will.” I shove myself to my feet. “Until then, though, we need to get the fuck out of here.”
I’m calculating how the hell I’ll go about getting a wheelchair down the fire escape in when I hear the footsteps. Heavy boots on hardwood, moving fast in our direction.
“Bast—”
“Quiet. Let me think.”
I have maybe fifteen seconds before they round that corner.
Therefore, fuck the wheelchair.
I lunge into action.
The window slides open without a sound. Frank’s reno work was good on this one detail at least.
I turn back and scoop Sage out of bed in one fluid motion. His arms instinctively wrap around my neck even as his face contorts with fury. He’s lighter than I remember, or maybe I’m just running on so much adrenaline that I could bench press a fucking Buick right now.
“Basti, what the?—”
“Hold onto me,” I snarl. “Don’t let go.”
But I didn’t move fast enough. The guard rounds the corner at the end of the hall.
I see the man’s face make sense of what he’s looking at—a dead man holding a hostage boy, framed by an open window like some fucked-up Renaissance painting, chiaroscuro lighting and all.
He lifts his gun.
Levels it at us.
And I can’t do a goddamn thing about it.
My hands are full of my brother. My weapons are in my waistband, unreachable. We’re frozen here, caught between escape and execution, and all I can do is watch as the guard thumbs off the safety and aims it directly at my chest.
23
ELIANA
11:31 P.M.—FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLIER
