Tex’s arm tightened around me instantly, every muscle in his body taut with tension. “Don’t,” he growled, low and fierce. “You don’t get to take that on.”
But I did. I felt it. The crushing, suffocating weight of knowing they were here because of me. The guilt that men and women were dyingbecause of me.
And as I sat there trembling in his arms, surrounded by death and smoke and men preparing to kill again, I realized something else.
This wasn’t going to stop. Not until one side was gone, or I was dead. It was only a matter of time.
I could feel the weight of every scream, every gunshot, every life hanging in the balance because of me. It pressed against my ribs until I could barely breathe. Before Tex even realized what I was doing, I slipped out of his arms and stepped out from behind the broken concrete barrier and raised my hand in the air. The other arm was strapped against my chest still.
“Rowan!” His voice cracked like a whip behind me.
I didn’t turn. I couldn’t. If I looked at him, I’d lose my nerve.
“I’m right here!” I shouted toward the line of men at the entrance to the club. “I’m the one you want. Just stop—stop hurting these people. Please. Just let them go.”
I caught a brief glimpse of the men at the front of the club, smiles on their faces, guns aimed in my direction, before boots pounded behind me. Tex’s arm wrapped around my waist and yanked me back so hard my feet left the ground. I twisted, pushing at his chest, but he held on like steel.
“Let me go,” I begged, breathless. “Tex, let me go. People are dying because of me.”
“No.” His voice was low and rough. It was final.
I shoved harder, tears blurring everything. “You don’t understand—I can’t watch this happen. I can’t be the reason?—”
He grabbed my face in both hands, forcing my gaze to his. His eyes were wild, terrified, furious—all of it aimed at me.
“I’m not letting you walk out there,” he said.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I whispered, shaking. “I can’t let all these people die because of me.”
His forehead pressed to mine, his breath unsteady. “My life wouldn’t be worth living if it wasn’t for you.”
I froze. “Why?”
Ihadto know. If I was going to die today—Ideservedto know.
He had said we had no future, yet now he said his life wouldn’t be worth living without me.
It made no sense.
Hemade no sense.
“Brave little mouse, isn’t she?” the man called with a mocking tone. “Far braver than you, it would seem. More sensible too.”
“You ain’t leavin’ here alive,” someone called from our end of the room. “Time is ticking. Tick, tick, tick…”
Shouts echoed all around me, but all I could hear was him—Tex.
He swallowed hard, his eyes searching mine. He looked away from me, practically wincing as he did, like it was physically painful for him to tear his eyes from mine. “You don’t understand,” he replied gruffly.
“So help me to.”
