But one look at the man behind me tells me he isn’t here for that.
“No,” Asher groans, trying to sit up, trying to pull me away. “Don’t you fucking touch her!”
He’s ignored. The man is focused entirely on me as he raises his gun.
The car may have left, but they didn’t finish the job.
They didn’t kill me.
Ella. Run. Please run!
I stare at the man holding the gun, tears running down my cheeks, Asher’s blood soaking my hands and clothes. I expect my heart to race, maybe even to stop, but it remains a steady, strangely normal beat in my chest.
Maybe the end of your life brings you total peace.
Maybe the questions are answered, and the pain stops, and the clarity washes over you.
Or maybe I’m giving up.
I look back at Asher. He’s pale now, his breathing labored. He’s looking past me, blinks lasting longer, or maybe time has slowed to allow us these final moments together.
I touch his face, smearing blood across his cheek, and he fixes his attention on me again—and he smiles.
“You were worth waiting for,” he says.
My sob is filled with anguish, and I lean down and kiss him. “I love you,” I whisper, my tears mixing with his blood. I don’t know if I do. I don’t know if I mean it. But it seems the kindest thing to say, and such lovely words to be my last.
The gunshot rings out, and I close my eyes.
I’m cloaked in darkness. My body is numbed to the cold of death, to the damp blood on my hands, to the tears on my cheeks. I’m taken out of this moment, out of the pureterror and horror of losing him, and for a few seconds, I’m safe.
“Asher,” a voice calls out, and I open my eyes. I turn, and the man with the gun is on the ground, dead, blood slipping from his body, and Gable is on Asher’s other side. He places his gun down and takes hold of his brother’s face. “Asher, wake up.”
My trembling body can’t absorb the last few moments. I simply stare at Gable, at the horror in his eyes as he tries to wake his brother.
“Asher,” Gable whispers, pressing their foreheads together. “Please don’t fucking leave me.”
Motor lies by Asher’s head and lets out a low whine, nudging his cheek as if to try and wake him.
The numbness leaves me, and my world crashes as I watch Gable beg. Tears fall freely still, my hand still clasped around Asher’s, his blood cooling against my skin. His eyes are open, but there’s no life behind their blue, no sparkle, nothing that made Asher who he was.
He’s gone.
The sirens are so close now, and the sound tears me from my grief.
“Gable.” I wipe my eyes. “You have to go.” He ignores me, his attention fixed on his brother. I put my hand over his, and he lifts his gaze to me. “They’ll arrest you. You need to leave.”
The deep, vast darkness in his eyes seems to have grown in the last few seconds, like the shadows that kept Gable Flynn down are feeding on his grief. He looks empty. Lost.
“I can’t leave without him,” he says quietly, searching my eyes. He looks back at Asher, his lips parted. “I don’t know how to be on my own.”
The words tear at my already-shredded heart, and I gently take the back of his neck to pull him closer to me. We press our foreheads together, and over Asher’s lifeless body, we share a few seconds, our first seconds, of understanding.
Of pure, agonizing loss.
“Go,” I say quietly. “Quickly.” Reluctantly, he stands, still staring at Asher. “Go, Gable.”
He strides past the body of the man who almost killed me, but pauses. “Motor, come on, boy.” The dog remains at Asher’s side, glancing between the brothers. “Motor, boy. We have to go.”
