Cade’s blood.
On Ryan’s hands.
On Ryan’s shirt.
Under Ryan’s nails.
The room tilted so hard I thought I might fall through it. His eyes found mine, and whatever was left of him broke open.
“Bliss,” he said, in a way that barely sounded like my name.
I stood without meaning to. My body reacted before my mind decided what to do with the sight of him, before I could stop myself from moving toward the blood like maybe Cade was somehow still inside it. Aura grabbed my hand, and Charm whispered something beside me that might have been my name, might have been a prayer, might have been nothing at all, because the room had narrowed to Ryan’s ruined shirt, his shaking mouth, and the horror in his eyes.
“He told me to tell you he loves you,” Ryan said, voice breaking. “But I refused to hear it.”
The words did something worse than hurt. They rearranged me.
Cade had tried to leave me a message. Cade, bleeding on concrete, barely breathing, had tried to make sure I knew. And Ryan had refused to let those be his last words.
A sound pushed up my throat, but it got trapped behind the part of me that understood if I started screaming now, I might never stop.
Knox moved instantly, crossing the room in three strides. Not harsh. Not cruel. Just fast. He put one hand on Ryan’s shoulder and turned him away from me before Ryan could say anything else, before I could see anything else on him, before any more of Cade’s blood could become real in my head.
“Come on,” Knox said quietly.
Ryan shook his head once, eyes still locked on me. “I didn’t leave him.”
“I know,” Knox said.
“I didn’t leave him.”
“I know.”
Ryan’s face crumpled so quickly he looked younger than all of them. Younger than a future professional athlete. Younger than a college senior. Younger than the boy everyone said had fought his way out of a life that had tried to swallow him before he got a chance to become anything else.
Knox’s grip tightened on his shoulder. “Come with me.”
Ryan let Knox guide him out of the room, and when the door closed behind them, my legs stopped pretending they knew how to hold me.
I sat down hard.
Dad pulled me into his side, and I turned my face into his chest the way I had when I was little and nightmares still meant monsters under the bed instead of monsters at family barbecues. His hand cupped the back of my head, and for a moment, he heldme too tightly, like there was something inside him that wanted to crush all the broken pieces of the night back into shape through force alone.
“Breathe, Bug,” he whispered.
I tried.
Nothing worked right.
Not my lungs. Not my heart. Not my hands.
“He was breathing, right, Daddy?” I asked for the hundredth time.
Dad’s voice broke. “Yeah, baby.”
“He was breathing when they took him.”
“Yeah.”
