“Don’t—” I groan in pain when the car hits a pothole, causing white to spot my vision when my body bounces and thumps against the unforgiving surface. “Don’t you dare apologize,” I gasp, finding it awfully hard to breathe through each word. “None of this is?—”
“It is!” she cries softly as her fingertips find my face again. “It is, because you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”
How could she possibly think that?
“Baby…”My words fade, my mind too sluggish to complete what I want to say. I start to shiver as the metallic tang of blood creeps through my senses. The pain in my shoulder accompanied by the blood loss threatens to pull me under, but I don’t want to slip away. I can’t die, knowing that Collins needs me.
The tips of her fingers are like a ghost of a touch, trailing deftly along my skin. She navigates my face and neck, then lower until she reaches my shirt, which is now thoroughly soaked with my own blood.
“You’re hurt,” she chokes, devastation coating the two heavy words. She sniffles, clutching the soiled material tightly betweenher fists. A quiet, broken sob rips from her chest while she feels around for the wound. I hiss when she comes in contact with my shoulder, and I can tell it makes her jump by the way her fingers twitch against my shirt. “H-he shot you.” She says the words so quietly, but they’re etched in sorrow and agony.
My speech is robbed from me when Collins balls the fabric of my shirt again and tries to press it to the wound to staunch the bleeding. It’s so blindingly painful that my body flinches away on instinct. She sobs as she pushes again, though, intent on her actions that may be a lost cause.
How much more can I bleed out before it’s too much?
The thought terrifies me.
Ifinallyfound the family I’d always dreamed of having. I even managed to fall in love along the way. Fuck, something new had begun to take form with Creed. Something that I’ll never get to fully explore.
The thought of leaving either of them births a new sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.
Even in the dark of the trunk, everything feels like it’s tilting and I’m so fucking dizzy, my head won’t stop spinning and spiraling.
My eyes threaten to roll back and let the darkness claim me, but I fight like hell to regain control of my mind.Fuck,I need to stay awake. I will my lips to move, to speak to her.
“Baby?” I think I say. She’s quiet, so I try to form my lips around her name. “Snow?”
“Riley?” I commit the sound of my name on her lips to memory.
“Tell me—tell me a pretty lie.” I stammer out.
“A… pretty lie?” she echoes softly.
“Y-yeah, I want you to… paint a picture for me, Snow.”Every word is labored but I think I manage to choke them out.
She’s quiet for another moment, probably wondering if I’ve lost too much blood and am now losing my mind. Unfortunately, both of those assessments are becoming truer with each passing moment.
“We’re gonna be okay.” She sniffles, pressing a little harder against the bullet hole in my shoulder. “Creed and Asher are going to find us before you know it, and we’ll both be okay.” Even through her rasping whisper, it sounds like even she can’t believe her own words. But I see them for what they are. I asked her for a pretty lie, and she told one.
The reality of the situation is that only one of us will most likely survive this ride into a place unknown. Even then, what does Guy have planned for Collins? My body flushes with anger at the thought of him anywhere near her.
“Riley, you have to calm down,please.”She begs, her desperation pulling me from my nightmarish thoughts. I do my best to refocus on her voice. “You—you’re bleeding more.Fuck,what do I do, baby? How do I stop it?”
Here she is, held captive and bound in a trunk just like I am, and she’s only worried about me?
I try to take a deep breath, but each expansion of my lungs feels like white hot knives are piercing the failing organs.
Agony sweeps through me with one harrowing thought.
I’m not gonna make it much longer.
A tear slips from my eye at the heartache and despair I feel for leaving Collins to fight alone. I have to have faith that Creed will find us—findCollins—quickly.
I want to scoot closer to her, but I can’t get my body to move. There’s a disconnect happening between my brain and my extremities as I feel myself shutting down.
“Now…t-tell me an… ugly… lie.”
She’s crying now, too. I can tell by the way her hands shake where they’re pressed against my skin. She sniffs hard oncebefore a rogue sob and escapes her lips. Her hands leave me, and I hear her shift across the carpet of the trunk. Her warm breaths fan across my neck and chin as her touch returns, putting as much pressure as she can muster against my wound.
