"ACE!"
Colten. Colten's face above me. His hands on my side, pressing down hard, and I want to tell him it hurts, but there are more important words, and I only have so many left.
I think these may be my last ones. I can see her blonde hair in my mind. Her smile. That nose ring that I love.
"Is she alive?" I manage.
My eyes won’t focus anymore.
"Ace, stay with me."
I need to know she made it. I don’t give a fuck about anything else. Just let her be okay. I just need my girl to live, even if it is without me. I’ll find her again. I know I will.
"Where is she?" My hand finds his shirt. My fingers won't work right, but I hold on anyway. "Colt. Where's Harper? The baby?”
"She's safe. She's safe, Ace, she's with Gianna's doctor?—"
"My baby." The words are sliding around. Everything is sliding. "Is my baby?—"
"The baby's okay. They're both okay. You hear me? Both of them. You just gotta stay awake."
I try to believe him. I want to believe him. But all I can see is her hand hanging through that broken window, and the smoke, and the two feet of road I couldn't cross.
"I couldn't get to her, Colt." My voice cracks apart.
"You got to her. You hear me? You went, and you got her out of that house, and that's why she's alive. Now stop talkin'."
"Where is she?" It's all I have left. The only sentence in me. I say it again. "Where is she. My baby. Where?—"
"Ace. ACE. Eyes on me?—"
Hunter's there now, too. Both my brothers, hands pressed into me, shouting my name, and somewhere behind them, Jett is roaring at someone to move faster, and Gianna is standing over us with her brother's blood on her hands.
Her face alone tells me I ain’t gonna make it.
Fuck.
“Tell Harper I love her. Tell her that I’ll find her in another lifetime, just like I promised.”
And the last thing I think as the dark takes me, is that it ain't the dark I'm afraid of.
It's waking up in a world where Colten was lying to me.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Harper
Song- Follow You, Bring Me The Horizon
The door opens, and a heavy silence fills the room.
I see the cowboy hats first. Hunter. Colten. Jett.
Their heads are down. Not even Hunter can look me in the eyes.
I stare at the door, holding my breath, waiting for Ace to walk through it with that wicked smile on his face and scoop me up into his arms. Waiting for the punchline. Waiting for the part where this family of unkillable men produces the most unkillable one of all.
But then Gianna walks in and closes the door behind her. She's the only one who can look at me.
