In that split second, in that final moment of connection, I want to tell him everything I've never said.
That I'm sorry for being the reason he's here, for every beating he took that was meant for me.I want to tell him I love him more than I've ever loved anything in this world.
Something snaps inside me then.
Some final thread of sanity or self-preservation or fear for my own life.All that's left is rage and grief and the terrible knowledge that I have nothing left to lose.
I launch myself at Monty with everything I have left—all the fury and desperation.
I'm smaller, weaker, probably dying already from blood loss, but I'm fueled by something more powerful than survival instinct.
We struggle, and for a moment I think I might actually hurt him.My fingers claw at his face, his eyes, anything I can reach.I feel skin tear under my nails, hear him curse, and there's a savage satisfaction in knowing I've marked him.
Then a gunshot.
And for a split second there's just the weird sensation of something foreign punching through skin and muscle and organs that were never meant to have holes in them.The bullet tears through my abdomen like molten metal, then the fire starts.
Not just pain, but liquid agony spreading outward from the entry point like I've been filled with acid.My legs give out completely, and I hit the floor hard, the impact driving what little air I have left from my lungs.
The room tilts sideways then begins to spin, I can taste copper and something else—something that might be my own death working its way up my throat.
"Should've minded your own business, kid," Monty says, standing over me like some twisted angel of death.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Just the sound of my own breathing, getting shallower with each breath.
I can't move.
I can't speak.
The blood pools beneath me, warm and sticky, and my vision blurs until Nate's face becomes just a pale smudge against the darkness.But even like that, even still and silent, he looks peaceful.
At least the pain is gone for him.
I used to think people came in two kinds.
The ones who carry the fire, and the ones who get burned by it.I thought I knew which one I was.
But I didn’t see it until it was too late.
There’s a moment, right before everything splits apart, where it all sharpens.
Where you see the truth so clearly it almost hurts to look at.The people you love the most, they’re the ones who blind you the fastest.
And loyalty?
Loyalty can be a cage if you’re not careful.
It can convince you that monsters wear halos, and heroes wear bruises.I wanted to believe in him but sometimes the villain looks a hell of a lot like the man you were trying so hard to become.
If I’d known then what I know now, maybe I would’ve chosen differently.
Maybe I would’ve walked away.
But I didn’t.
And now I’m stuck in the silence between heartbeats, wishing I’d said more when I had the chance.
