Page 98 of Freedom’s Inferno

Her breath caught, tears shimmering in her eyes.

The sight of it tore me open. “I mean it. You walked into my life and turned every part of me right side up. I didn’t know how empty I was until you filled the space.” My hand moved to the back of her neck, my fingers sliding into her damp hair. “You make me want to be better. Not because you asked me to, but because you looked at me like I already was.”

Her lips parted, trembling, but I kept speaking, the words too heavy, too real to hold back.

“I’m in love with you,” I said, the confession rough, reverent. “Completely, hopelessly, selfishly in love with you. And I can’t undo it. You’re in every part of me now. In my head, in my lungs, in the fucking rhythm of my heartbeat. I can’t fathom a world where I exist without you in it.”

Her tears slipped free then, quiet and unashamed, and I caught them with my thumb.

I pressed my forehead to hers, breathing her in like she was the first clean air I’d had in years.

“I love you,” I whispered again, slower this time, every syllable a vow. “And I’m never letting go.”

“I love you too, Charlie.”

The words landed in me like something holy, something I’d been waiting my whole damn life to hear.

She turned in the water, her knees brushing against mine as she shifted to face me. Her hands came up to my face, fingertips tracing my jaw, the corners of my mouth, as if memorizing the shape of me. Then she kissed me—desperate, hungry, filled with everything we hadn’t said, everything we’d survived. Her lips trembled, warm against mine.

I met her with the same urgency, the same ache that had been burning in me for days.

The world around us disappeared. No blood, no fear, no past. Only the press of her mouth, the taste of her breath, her heartbeat against my chest. The kiss broke and she stayed close, her forehead dropping to mine, her breath fast and uneven against my lips.

I held her tighter, one hand sliding up her back, the other cradling the back of her head.

“I mean it,” she whispered. “I love you.”

I kissed her again, slower this time. “I know,” I murmured against her lips. “I feel it.”

Chapter 39

Lana

Charlie’s confession hung between us, his words hitting me like a wave breaking across my chest. His eyes held sincerity, his hands trembling against my skin.

All the walls I’d built, all the ways I’d learned to protect myself, cracked in an instant. No one had ever seen me like that, chosen me like that. All I could do was feel it—the ache, the awe, the wild, terrifying beauty of being loved by him—swelling inside me until it felt like my heart might burst from the sheer force of it.

I reached out, tracing my fingers along his jaw, the faint roughness of stubble under my thumb. “Are you okay? You’re hurt, aren’t you?”

He gave me a crooked smile. “I’m sore,” he admitted, his voice rough with exhaustion. “But right now the pain is reminding me we’re still alive. I can live with that.”

I leaned in and kissed him, tasting the truth of it: the fatigue, the relief, the life still in him.

His hand came up to the back of my neck, pulling me closer, deepening the kiss until the rest of the world fell away again.

The water sloshed around us, warm against our skin, steam curling in the air between every breath. My heart hammered, not from fear this time, but from something tender and fierce.

He looked at me again, his eyes burning with devotion, ardent and unyielding.

I moved closer, my hands finding his shoulders, his chest, the steady beat of his heart under my palm. His breath caught as I kissed him again, and the space between us disappeared.

Charlie broke the kiss suddenly, his breath uneven, his forehead resting against mine. His hands were still on my waist, fingers trembling. “Lana, you’re hurt. We shouldn’t…”

Conflict warred in his tone, the struggle between restraint and everything burning beneath it.

I shook my head, pulling him back to me, my lips brushing his before he could finish. “I don’t care. I just need you.”

He hesitated only a fraction longer before his resolve gave way. He kissed me again with the kind of intensity that left no space for words, no thought beyond the desperate need to be close enough to prove to ourselves that we were alive.