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This wasn’t goodbye. Not for Darien. He hated goodbyes, and he’d be damned if he ever had to say it to the woman he loved.
He sat in a chair at Loren’s bedside in the hospital, her limp hand in his. Her beautiful face was smooth and expressionless, her breathing barely detectable. There was no sound in the room aside from the beeping of the heartrate monitor and the humming of fluorescent lights.
“Loren.” Darien’s throat was so tight, he could barely squeeze the name past his lips. “I don’t know if you can hear me… But—I hope you can.” The longer he spoke, the harder it became to breathe. To think.
The faint beeping of the machine continued, the only sound that answered him. The beating of Loren’s golden heart.
“I love you, Loren.” There was such raw truth in the statement that he almost didn’t recognize his own voice. His next words were thick and wobbling, and his eyes began to burn. “I’m so in love with you. None of us would be here right now if it weren’t for you, and now you’re here in this hospital…barely alive—” His breathing hitched, his free hand squeezing into a fist on his knee.
The cold white room disappeared with the shutting of his eyes. He focused on breathing for a few minutes, trying to slow his accelerated heartbeat to the beeping of the monitor, matching it to Loren’s heart.
Darien leaned forward. Bowed his head. With his eyes still closed, he drew a rattling breath.
And then he went on to say the things he should’ve said to her, should’ve told her when he’d had the chance. Instead, he’d squandered his precious time with her, and now they were here. And it was too late.
“I realized I was in love with you that night I took you to see the stars. After I…after I fucked up, I went to fight at the Pit. All I wanted was to go home so badly, but I realized home wasn’t a place anymore, it was wherever you were. That was when I knew—my life would never be the same without you.
“When I met you, Loren, when I sat across from you that day at Rook and Redding’s, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Instantly, I was…protective of you. Even if you would’ve refused my help, I don’t think I would’ve been able to stay away from you. You affected me in a way no one ever has. And as the days wore on, and I got to see all the vulnerable and beautiful parts of you, I didn’t just want to be your friend, I wanted to be your best friend. I wanted to be the first thing you thought of when you woke up and the last thing that crossed your mind before you fell asleep. Your laugh and your smile lit up a part of me that had been dark for so long. You brought light into my life, and even though I knew that I could never deserve you, I didn’t want to let you go. Even the thought of being separated from you made it difficult to breathe. I wanted you to let me love you. I wanted to give you the world, because you had become mine.” Tears wet his eyelashes and slipped down his cheeks. “I love you, Loren.”
When the last word trailed off into silence, the beeping of the machine swelled to a roar that grabbed hold of his already broken heart and crushed it into dust.
“Please,” he whispered, the word gruff and choked by tears. “Please wake her up. Don’t take her from me. Please. She’s all I’ve got.” She was his path to the light, his only shot at innocence, and if she was gone, if she left him here…
Darien opened his damp eyes. The words were out at last, but they brought him no relief.
Because the girl he loved was still asleep. She wasn’t here, and even though he didn’t know for certain, he had a feeling he was the only person hearing his words. His useless fucking words.
The words that weren’t enough. Not. Good. Enough.
Still, he clung to that small chance that she might hear him, wherever she was drifting.
“I’m sorry I never told you.” He traced the back of her delicate hand with his thumb. The soft scent of her—that cedar-and-rain fragrance that was the magic of the Arcanum Well—was nearly nonexistent. So was her aura, both of them fading away with the last of her life. The potent glow of rainbow and white light was nothing now but a tiny flame threatening to gutter out. “I want you to come back.” His throat was tight, and he couldn’t see, though for once in his life it wasn’t the Sight rendering him blind. He blinked more tears away, tasting the salt of them as they ran over his lips. He wiped at his nose with his other hand. His next words were sobs, broken up only by rasping breaths. “I’m crying like a child and you can’t even hear me. Love isn’t a good enough word to describe how I feel for you.”
There was no answer, no sign of movement. Her hand was so still, it made him sick. His heart was breaking, and he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Come back.” The two words were barely audible. “Come back to me, sweetheart. Please.”
But there was only silence. Her beautiful and vibrant energy that made him feel warm and happy and wanted and safe…it was gone. He’d never felt so cold in all his life.
Nor had he ever felt so horribly fucking alone.
—
Max slowed his pace as he neared Loren’s room in Angelthene General Hospital, the other Devils walking on either side of him. The room Darien hadn’t left since the moment he got here.
Ivy was the first to step forward. She walked heel to toe, edging around the corner and through the open doorway.
Max followed behind her, but his feet stilled at the sight of Darien—and the girl lying motionless on the bed, eyes shut, her right hand, so pale and limp, clasped between both of Darien’s.
Darien, whose head was bowed, broad shoulders curled forward, elbows resting on his knees. He still wore the Fleet bodysuit, the black material grimy, rips everywhere. His hair hung in his face, the strands coated in ash, dust, and blood. Although he didn’t turn, Max knew his friend could sense they were there. Nothing slipped by him.
“I’m having a Surge.” Darien’s deep voice was flat. It filled the room, the sound bringing Ivy to a halt several feet from his chair. She backed up a pace, but Max knew it was because Darien would want her to, and not because she was afraid of him.
When Darien spoke again, he kept his head bowed, not moving a muscle. “I need to get out of here.” That voice was so emotionless. So empty. The sound of it sickened Max. When Tanner glanced at him, the hacker’s face just as filthy as Max’s felt, he knew he wasn’t the only one who was feeling that way. Darien’s next sentence was a whisper, hoarse and weak. “It isn’t safe. I can’t be around her.”
Lace, who was inching through the doorway behind Max, stopped suddenly and backed up into the hallway. She leaned back against the wall beside the door and shut her eyes. With a shaking of her head, as if trying to rid herself of this reality, she raised her hands to her face and silently sobbed into her palms.
Enough. They’d all had enough.
