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Rowan raises the gun and points it directly at Valli’s chest. “You don’t get to negotiate with me.”

He shouts out vile things, calling his sister names and accusing her of things that make my blood boil. Rowan is spiraling—panicking—and that makes him dangerous.

Cave takes a step forward.

“Don’t,” Rowan snaps. “Don’t fucking move.”

But of course, Cave doesn’t listen.

I run to Valli, and the gun goes off as I launch my body toward her. The sound is deafening, and for a moment everything stops. When I look down at her beneath me, she has tears in her eyes.

“I’m okay,” she whispers, and it’s then that I realize I’m not.

The pain hits me like a freight train. Noa is at our side, rolling my body off Valli’s, his hands covered in my blood.

Valli’s screams come from far away as my body burns so badly.

She leans over me, pushing her hands into my chest. “Don’t you dare die,” she whispers. “You stay with me. This is not how our story ends.”

I want to tell her it’s okay. That if I had known it would end like this, I still would have done it again and again. I would bleed so she doesn’t have to. Yet as my eyes get heavy, and the world spins around me, my head falls to the side. Through my blurred vision I see Cave’s hands around Rowan’s neck, and I register the absolute lack of mercy in his expression.

“You took what cannot be returned. You stole from her what was never yours to take. And now, you pay the debt that’s due. What is taken must be given back. What is owed must be paid.”

Everything fades, and I don’t regret giving my life for hers. I would do it a hundred times over.