“Ayden?” I look up to see Taylor coming around a corner. Her red hair is pulled into a high bun, eyes rimmed the same color.
Without hesitation, I sprint to her. When she opens her arms, I hug her, and she trembles in my grasp. A choked sob escapes as she says, “C-Corey… he… Oh my god…”
I tilt my head back and release an unsteady breath. “Keoni… where… where is he?”
She squeezes me, and fear ripples through me.
“Is he…” I pull back slightly and look at her, lips quivering. “Please don’t?—”
She shakes her head, struggling to speak. But I need her to. I need her to tell me he’s alright.
“Taylor, where is?—”
“Here.”
In this moment, it feels like she’s holding me up.
I turn my head, and Keoni is there, standing in the doorway of one of the hospital rooms. His shirt is streaked with blood, wires dangling from his arm.
Completely releasing her, I move toward him. Tears break free as realization washes over me—he’s alive. He wasn’t the one taken, and the guilt that I’d silently prayed it wasn’t him, but someone else, has me crying even harder.
31
Although his movements are slow, they’re purposeful. He wraps his arms around my head, and I circle mine around his torso. I don’t squeeze—afraid of hurting him.
I breathe in through my stuffy nose, and the smell of fire is rooted so deeply in him it feels like I’m walking through the flames with him. My body heating to a painful burn as if I really were on fire.
He exhales shakily before lowering his face into the crook of my shoulder.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I whisper over and over. I keep saying it, because whoever I have to pray to for sparing him, I will.
He doesn’t speak—just adjusts his hold to pull me closer.
“Keoni…” Kali’s soft voice feels too intrusive, and selfishly, I don’t want to let her in. “Are you okay?”
Keo sighs, lifting his head from my shoulder to look past me, and I tilt my gaze upward in response. His chin is scratched; surgicaltape stretches across his forehead to hold the skin together, and stitches run just in front of the ear closest to me.
“I’m alive,” he says at last, his tone somber.
The weight of losing a member of their team is so palpable it feels like a punch to my sternum. My heart already aches, but looking between the three of them, it feels like it could split into pieces. Two, no—three. One for each of them, and the devastation carved into their faces.
“Mr. Pierce, please return to your room.”
I look up to see Dr. Alvarez striding toward us. The look he gives, glancing between Keo and me, is questioning. And I realize the position we’re in. This isn’t a hug stepbrothers would be giving one another. I’ve got every inch of me, other than my feet and calves curved against him.
But it’s nowhere near aspossessiveas the hold he has on me.
There’s no way Dr. Alvarez doesn’t know who Keoni is to me, but at this point, everyone can think I’m vile if they want. I don’t want to let go of him, and Iknowhe feels the same.
“You’ve got second-degree burns, you inhaled enough smoke to affect your breathing and oxygen levels for weeks, and you’ve got fresh stitches. You need to lie down and rest while we monitor you.”
“I’m going to go check on Delilah,” Kali says. Before leaving, she steps toward us. I know she wants to hug Keo, and I’m not going to stand in the way, even though letting him go feels unbearable.
I move away, and both girls wrap their arms around him. Taylor cries openly, while Kali’s tears streak silently down her face. Keo looks completely hollowed out, pain swimming in his beautiful amber eyes.
“I-I’m going to f-find Dom,” Taylor stammers. “T-This hurts.”
Keo nods weakly. “I know…”
