My eyes slammed tighter.
And I was picked up from the chair and warmth wrapped around me.
A marine breeze filled my senses. Freedom. Ollie.
“Mia, look at me,” he cried. My eyes blinked open, and I was face to face with a wrecked man. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated over and over.
I turned my head, my body still shaking to see Madilyn on the floor with a knife lodged into her side.
I returned my gaze to Ollie. “I don’t…”
He kissed me—my cheeks. My nose. My eyes. My neck. Ollie’s hands moved over my face, and that was when I saw the reflection in his eyes.
His eyes moved past me to behind me. His emerald gems grew in size and was replaced once again by panic. Zeke’s shriek pierced my eardrums, and Ollie shoved me to the side just as Zeke jumped between Madilyn and where I stood seconds before.
Time stalled and sped simultaneously. Before Ollie could do anything, Madilyn had removed the blade from her side, blood dripping from the knife and over the marble, and drove it into Zeke’s stomach. The actions that followed raced at the speed of light. Ollie launched forward, an anguished yet hostile scream erupted from his chest like fire. Frozen in place, I struggled to take in what was happening. All I could do was watch as Ollie withdrew a pencil from his back pocket and plunge it deep into Maddie’s neck. All I could hear was the thump as she hit the floor, followed by a second thump as Ollie collapsed. Blood ran down the length of his arm, smearing on the marble floor as he shuffled toward Zeke, frantically screaming his name in defeat and bottomless heartbreak, over and over.
I must have screamed. I didn’t hear it, but I felt it in my throat. Everything seemed to go hazy, my heart now steadying to a slow but unsteady beat, a beat that can only be matched to broken pieces of my world falling apart all around me.
It was February 29th.
Leap day.
I froze with my arms wrapped firmly around my knees curled into a ball as Ollie’s agonizing cries boomed around me. His fist pounded into the marble, as the other fisted Zeke’s shirt at his chest. I couldn’t move. Ollie’s soul crumbled before me, and I was useless. Shock took me over. Even tears froze mid-fall down my cheek.
Zeke coughed, and his head tilted as blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
“You have to stay with me, brother,” Ollie cried. “Hang in there.” Zeke’s eyes slid to mine, and peace filled the dark circles of them. Calm in the storm, succumbing to his fate. He’d lost the will to fight, finally wanting to be set free.
Only once before had I watched someone’s soul slip away. My uncle had fear and shock in his eyes as if he didn’t expect it. Our eyes had locked until he was gone, and even then, I had sat frozen, staring back at the lifeless glaze in the hollow pupils.
Zeke accepted his fate with open arms. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t afraid. The peace inside him was calm and quiet, but the devastation surrounding him was unwilling to let him go.
Then his calmness slid back to Ollie.
A silent understanding passed between them, and still, I couldn’t move.
Zeke tried to lift his hands, and Ollie took them both and held them to his chest.
“I did it. I saved her,” Zeke whispered through a cough.
“Yeah, you did, my friend.” Ollie broke and forced a small smile over his wet face.
“Mia, and Ollie, forever,” Zeke finally whispers with a hoarse throat. His eyes blinked closed as blood soaked through his shirt.
“No, no, no, no, stay with me,” Ollie’s head snapped in my direction. “Go, Mia! Get help!” The words seemed so far away, yet right in my ear. Until Ollie’s hands clutched my face and demanded me to see him—to hear him. “He needs you ... I need you. Look at me! I need you to fucking hear me, Mia! Go find help!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“The only way to cheat death
is by creating alove that
will liveforever.”
—Oliver Masters
mia.
