Eyes wide, his gaze was torn between his best friend’s face and his chest. He froze.
Unsure what to do next.
Because Landon’s heart was beating on its own.
But it was wrong—the rhythm, unsteady. We needed more than what we had now to understand how to save him.
Compressions—they couldn’t help him.
So, if there had been a way to bring someone back from the brink of death by sheer force of will, I believed Kingston would have done it.
But he couldn’t.
Because nothing had prepared him for something like this.He couldn’t save him. Not alone.
But life had prepared me.
I raised my fist.
Thumping it down hard, I hit a spot right over Landon’s heart. Like I’d seen one other time. In one final, desperateattempt to save a life—to jolt an unsteady rhythm just enough that it would normalize.
Silence filled the cave.
The seconds after lasted for an eternity.
Quinn stared at me in shock over what I’d done.
Kingston blinked through his, unable to tear his eyes from Landon, hands poised to restart compressions.
I placed two fingers on Landon’s neck, nodding to Kingston when his pulse thrummed beneath them.
Weak and thready, but it was there.
Then we heard it.
A sound none of us would forget.
A tight, pained gasp.
Landon opened his eyes. First meeting Kingston’s blue-gray, filling with tears, and then hers, shining with relief.
Her soft cry filled the cavern. She bent toward him, Kingston’s tightened his grip on Landon’s arm, and their bodies shook. I witnessed their fear shift to joy.
Then, love.
And it changed everything.
But, too quickly, it all faded away.
His pulse slowed beneath my fingertips.
I pressed down harder, staring at the back of her head, unable to imagine telling her we hadn’t saved him.
That it hadn’t been enough.
As his eyes fell shut, he whispered, “I’m yours.”
Then, Landon Scott—my sworn enemy, his Golden Boy, and her White Knight—exhaled a quiet, shaky breath.
And went back into the dark.
