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She scurries out of the way, remaining in the grass like she doesn’t have the strength to stand. I glance down at her, nodding once before refocusing on the target before me.

My hands shake, my rage boiling to the surface as I struggle with the morality of what I have to do. It takes me about two seconds to decide that this is not a gray space, only the most violent of blacks. I squeeze my eyes shut for only a second, and when I open them, reality has shifted.

“You don’t want to do this, Callum,” I hear a voice, but it’s not the one that previously belonged to the masked figure I’ve come to know.

When I open my eyes, it’s Kaila standing there. I shake my head, knowing this must be some hallucination, some temporary vision induced by the frequencies. The figure before me blurs in and out of focus until Dorian is standing before me.

“Come on, pull the trigger. It’s not like you haven’t killed before,” Dorian says. I shake my head again, knowing that he can’t be real. Dorian is already dead. This is another hallucination.

Get it together, Callum.

Through the mental haze, I steal a glance down at Lydia, only to find an empty place where she once was. I growl in frustration, willing my panic to retreat.

“Lydia?” I call out, searching for her through steady rivulets of rain falling around me.

“This way, Callum,” I hear the voice of the masked figure once more. My head snaps in his direction. He tilts his head, watching as I spiral before him.

“You fucker,” I growl. “Do not fucking move. Your life belongs to me.”

“What are you waiting for, then? Pull the trigger, Callum. Take my life. I deserve it, after all,” the masked figure says.

His words are eerily calm, strangely reassuring. I assess him closely, noting his stillness. He doesn’t attempt to run, doesn’t move an inch. Is he truly going to accept his fate so easily?

Shit, I do not have time for this. I need to do this so that I can go and find Lydia. Sucking in a deep breath, I grip the gun between my hands and point it directly at the man who tried to take my girl from me.

“This is for Lydia,” I snarl, my voice low and devoid of remorse. “May you rot in fucking Hell for the rest of your pathetic life.”

I squeeze the trigger. The shot rings through the rain, violent and deafening. The sound pierces the air, forcing reality to come crashing back full force. And when it settles, it’s not the masked figure I see before me.

It’s her body lying in the grass.

I fucking shot my girlfriend.

39

Lydia

I screamed and screamed, but Callum couldn’t hear me. He couldn’t see me. He was lost inside the frequency, captive to the mind control set forth by the masked figure who escaped several minutes ago. Or maybe our captor never left. Maybe he’s been watching us this entire time, waiting as his plan detonated before his very eyes.

Maybe this was his plan all along.

Staring down at my body, I observe how it lies strewn across the wet earth. The blood seeping from my chest seems fatal, final. I wait for the agonizing pain to hit me, but it never comes. I don’t feel anything, not anymore. All that remains now is the cold—a bone-chilling, horrifying, abysmal cold.

Callum’s eyes widen in utter horror at the scene below me as reality unfolds before him. Sprinting toward my body, he drops to the earth and cradles me into his lap. Those arms that are always so damn warm wrap around my limp body. Except, I don’t feel his skin against mine or the rain as it pours down over us. I don’t feel anything as Callum shakes my body, sobbing and throwing his head back to the sky above him. Thunder rumbles from the dark clouds overhead, a mirror to his visible anguish. Pulling out his phone to dial the emergency line, he presses his fingers against my neck.

“Come back to me, little siren. Please come back to me,” he cries out.

He brushes the hair from my face, running his fingers over every inch of skin as if trying to commit it to memory. His loud sobs fill the air as he pleads with anyone who will listen to bring me back to him. I want so badly to go back to him, to hold him and tell him that I’m right here.

Several moments pass before I hear the sirens, followed by the flashing lights as an ambulance comes to a halting screech on the highway nearby. A couple of medics exit the vehicle and sprint toward the scene below.

“Sir, can you step back, please? We’re here to help. Come with me.” The voice of a male medic filters through the rain as I watch him grab Callum’s shoulder.

Callum spins around, setting me on the ground to practically assault the guy behind him. A female medic runs toward my body, laying me on my back as a second medic places a board beneath my lifeless form. The female medic begins to push on my chest, and although I instinctively wince, I don’t feel a single thing. I’m only able to watch as an outsider from above, completely detached from the scene as it plays out.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Callum spits.

The young medic’s face flushes a bright shade of red as his eyes widen in shock. “I-I’m sorry, sir. We’re … we’re only here to help,” the guy stutters, clearly afraid.