The thought spiraled. James had shifted his aim. The movement had been unmistakable. And Kiernan had reacted faster than thought, faster than instinct, putting himself between the gun and me like his life was worth less.
I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to shake him until his eyes opened so I could tell him he was wrong.His life wasn’t a bargaining chip. His death wouldn’t protect us—it would destroy us.
But he lay motionless beneath my hands, and all I could do was press harder and pray.
“Keep talking to him.” Gus had a mobile pressed to his ear as he relayed information to the emergency services. “Keep him grounded.”
“Kiernan.” I leaned closer until my lips were near his ear. “Stay with us. Help is almost here. Just hold on.”
No response. His eyelids didn’t even flutter.
Ophelia stripped off her cardigan and passed it to me to replace the jacket that was now useless. I pressed it down. My hands had gone slick, and the fabric kept slipping. I adjusted my grip and pressed harder.
“Two minutes,” Gus said. “They’re coming in the service entrance.”
I’d trained for scenarios like this. Field medicine. Emergency triage. How to keep someone alive long enough for help to arrive. But training didn’t prepare you for the sound of your own voice breaking as you begged someone to hold on. Training didn’t account for love.
“You don’t get to do this.” The words came out raw. “You don’t get to throw yourself in front of bullets and leave us behind. That’s not how this works.”
Ophelia gripped his hand harder. “We didn’t come all this way to lose you.”
The absurdity of it struck me—both of us bargaining with an unconscious man, as if words could stitch wounds closed. But I couldn’t stop. The silence felt too much like giving up.
“Remember what you told me? In the playroom, after you punished me.” I leaned closer and pressed harder. “You said I belonged to you. Both of us did.” The words caught. “Well, you belong to us too. And we’re not letting you go.”
His chest rose. Fell. Rose again. Each breath a victory I couldn’t take for granted. Each pause between them a small death.
Footsteps echoed on the stairs. Voices called out, and torchlight swept across the space. Green uniforms descended—paramedics with equipment that looked clinical and hopeful.
“Gunshot wound to the upper left chest,” Gus reported. “He’s been down approximately four minutes. Breathing shallow, pulse thready.”
The lead paramedic knelt beside me. “Sir, I need you to move so I can assess the wound.”
I didn’t want to. Every instinct screamed at me to stay where I was, to hold his life inside him with sheer will. As long as I kept pressure on the wound, he couldn’t die. As long as I stayed here, I wasn’t useless.
But I knew when to step aside.
I leaned away and looked down at my hands. They were covered in blood. Dark and drying at the edges, wet and red closer to my palms. It had seeped into the creases of my skin, pooled beneath my fingernails, and stained the cuffs of my shirt. All of it Kiernan’s.
I’d held his life in my hands. I might not have held it well enough.
I’d done everything I could—stayed steady, talked to him, begged him to hold on. But what if everything I did wasn’t enough? What if he needed more, and I’d failed him?
Ophelia gripped my wrist. Her touch anchored me.
The paramedics worked fast. They cut away his shirt, exposed the wound—a ragged hole just below his left collarbone—and applied pressure dressings. They checked his vitals, started an IV, and spoke to each other in clipped shorthand. Numbers and abbreviations. A language of crisis I couldn’t follow.
Their hands swept over his body. They knew what they were doing. They had training and equipment and experience. All I’d had was a wadded jacket and the desperate will to keep him alive.
It hadn’t been enough. I could see that now, watching them work. My improvised first aid had been clumsy, inadequate, the efforts of a man grasping at straws.
But it had bought time. Maybe that was all that mattered.
I should look away. I couldn’t.
This was the man who’d commanded me to my knees. Who’d taken me apart with nothing but his voice and his hands. Who’d looked at me like I was worth claiming.
“BP’s dropping,” one of them said. “We need to move.”
