I hadn’t realized I could lose her another way.
My arrogance had gotten in the way, the beast inside of me urging me to taunt Julian, to make him hurt, to force him to realize that I wasn’t fucking going anywhere. I smugly looked him in the eye and all but told him I fucked his baby sister.
And I knew, looking into his eyes, that Julian saw red. He let his fury control him, let that fire build deep within him.
But that was the thing: fire was scorching.
“You fucking asshole. You fucked my baby sister. You’reDEAD!” Julian had yelled. And at that moment, I didn’t doubt it.
Julian raised his gun. And the next few seconds had seemed so slow yet so fast at the same time. Like I was underwater, watching the fish swim past me while helplessly drowning beside them. I wasn’t used to such a feeling, wasn’t used to having my control wrenched from me.
I fucking hated it.
I stiffened my body and prepared for pain, trying my best to shove Evangeline out of the way. I would have died sooner than I’d risk that bullet coming anywhere near her.
But as the metal swiftly traveled through the air, I suddenly found myself being shoved out of the way. I fell onto the ground with anoomph,my body clanging against the sturdy dining room chairs. I cursed as my head hit against the ground, black dots bursting at the edge of my vision.
And when I looked up, there was Eva. My angel, my little sun. My everything.
Beginning to bleed.
It was so small that I barely noticed the little dot of red appearing at her shoulder. Then it grew, and her pink dress slowly turned red along her arm.
Eva raised her shaking fingers to the wound and pulled them back, her breath shuddering as she stared at the gore. She looked at me with wide, helpless eyes.
Then she collapsed.
I dove across the floor, my hands catching her before she hit the ground. The thud she made would haunt me for the rest of my life. I was certain I’d have nightmares about it, about the little whimper she made when her eyes turned to her wound.
“Alek,” she cried, her frail body curling into me. Tears streamed like twin waterfalls down her cheeks, and I felt my heart breaking more and more with each one.
“I’m here, baby.” I grabbed her head and placed it in my lap, stroking her soft curls and examining the wound. Thankfully, the wound was a shallow one. As long as she went to the hospital soon, she would be fine.
But that didn’t mean the sight of blood on her delicate body didn’t rip me to shreds.
If I had any questions on whether Evangeline was a part of a ploy from Julian to attack me, they were answered now. She took a bullet that surely would have hit me in the heart, saving my life, not caring if that meant losing hers.
Why?I wondered as I wiped away her tears.Why did you push me out of the way? Why did you get yourself hurt over me? Why?
“Alek, it hurts,” she whimpered.
“I know, baby. I’m going to take you to the hospital, and they’re going to make it better. Okay?”
She nodded her head, though the movement seemed to cost her greatly. “Okay.”
“I’ll be with you the whole time.”
“No, you fucking won’t be,” Julian—who I honestly had forgotten was there—growled.
With a snap of his fingers, I was yanked backward by two men who were closer in size to a tank than to a normal human being. They held my arms behind my back and began to tie me up with a rope that rubbed my skin raw. I fought with everything I fought them with everything I had—elbows, shoulders, teeth—but I was off balance, dizzy, and too far from her.
Way too fucking far.
“Don’t hurt him,” Eva cried weakly, her voice barely more than a breath. She pushed herself onto her good arm, her face pale, her lips tinged blue. Blood still welled from her shoulder, soaking through the fabric no matter how hard she pressed herfingers against it. Soon, she fell back to the ground, her body not used to the pain of our world.
Julian went to her side and picked her up, cradling her to his body. That should have been me. Howdarehe try to keep me from her? She was bleeding. She needed me.
His face was cold when he looked at me, but it softened with guilt whenever his eyes darted to Eva. His eyes said so many emotions he wouldn’t dare show in front of me. The realization of what he had done. The horror as her face continued to pale. The soul-crushing shame.
