He didn’t answer. Just reached for me, hand slick and warm with blood.
I pressed mine over his. “Hold on, okay? Just hold on.”
I fumbled my phone out of my pocket, fingers trembling so badly I could barely unlock the screen. My hands were slick with Rafael’s blood, smearing across the glass.
I finally hit the call button with the edge of my knuckle, pressing it to my ear like it was the only thing tethering me to reality.
“Callum,” I choked out when he answered. “It’s bad. We’re behind Bear & Bun. Rafael’s hurt. He’s bleeding, they ambushed us. Just get here, please.”
My voice cracked somewhere in the middle, raw and strained. I couldn’t even remember what else I said.
“We’re on our way,” Callum said, ending the call.
Then it was just me and Rafael and the blood soaking into the cracked pavement.
I sank to the ground fully, drawing Rafael’s head into my lap as gently as I could. My hands were shaking, useless.
I tried to press my hoodie against the wound at his side, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding. The dark stain spread and spread. My chest hollowed out as panic set in, a deep, swallowing pit.
“Raf?” My voice was small. I didn’t recognize it. “Hey. Stay with me, okay? You’ve gotta stay with me.”
His eyes fluttered. His brow creased like he was in a dream he couldn’t quite shake.
“You’re… still here,” he muttered, voice gravelly and faint.
“Of course I’m here,” I whispered. “Where else would I be?”
He tried to shift again, instinct maybe, but his body jerked and he groaned, muscles seizing with pain. I placed a hand on his chest, right above his heart.
“Don’t move. Help’s coming. You’re gonna be okay,” I told him.
But I didn’t know if that was true. The blood kept coming. I couldn’t stop it, and it was my fault.
I sat there in the dirt, cradling him with my shaking arms, heart pounding so violently I thought I might pass out. My mind kept circling the same thoughts, the same sickening truth.
This was on me. They came for him because they couldn’t touch me the way they wanted to. Because Rafael had made it clear I wasn’t alone anymore. I mattered to him.
Because he stood between me and everything Avery had been threatening since the moment he slithered into my life. They hurt him because of me.
It was my name on that damn contract. My brother’s signature might’ve been on the original debt, but I was the one who kept it alive. Who paid it. Who kept the secret. Who let it fester.
And my stupid, brave, and infuriating Rafael, he’d put his body between me and the fallout. Without hesitation. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
The guilt pressed on my chest like a weight I couldn’t lift. Every drop of blood soaking into the ground beneath us screamed a truth I couldn’t run from: I thought I could handle it.
Thought I could keep it contained, keep it from touching anyone else. I’d thought it was over.
After Callum and the others found Avery. After they confronted him. After they warned him to leave Sugarpaw Springs.
I wanted to believe that had been enough. I needed to believe it. But this?
This was Avery’s answer.
This was a mesSean. He had no plans of leaving. He’d never planned to walk away. No, he was escalating. Pushing back harder now that he knew I had backup.
Now that he knew someone actually cared about me, and I had let my guard down.
I looked down at Rafael again. His skin was pale beneath the copper smears of blood. His breathing shallow, his body trembling with every intake of air.
