Griffin was dragging himself, trying to get to me.
Seeing only him, I careened forward.
His face was as beautiful as ever. Perfect. But blood dripped along an eyeball. One side of his skull was smashed in, dented and misshapen. Blood matted his hair. He’d used all his remaining strength just to reach me. He collapsed atop shards of glass and someone’s blood—probably a Magnum’s—they’d vanished but their blood hadn’t.
Griffin strained to lift his head and couldn’t. A cheek pressed into piles of glass, he gazed at me, blinking furiously as if he couldn’t focus, couldn’t really see me.
“Dream girl,” he murmured so softly it was already like a precious memory. “Don’t…” His throat bobbed as he struggled to swallow. “Don’t bring us back.” It was a garbled plea. “Live for us.”
He blinked drowsily. His eyes closed to half-mast. “Live for me.”
He must have heard Magnum.
“Fuck that,” I said.
His eyes battled back open. “No. No … don’t.”
They closed again.
For the last time.
A strangled cry escaped my quivering lips.
Something nudged me.
I turned to find Bobo staring at me.
he said into my mind, into my unbearable grief.
He nudged the heart in my hands with his nose.
Vacantly, I extended it toward him and scarcely noticed when he snatched it with his teeth.
Not even wiping the slick blood from my hands before touching Griffin, I ran them over his face, trying to rouse him.
But Griffin, my love …mydream guy … he was gone.
Lowering down to my hands and knees, uncaring that glass sliced my blood-slicked palms, I pressed the tenderest of kisses to his lips, lingered for a few extended moments that had no chance of being enough, and bolted for Layla.
28
On the Other Side of Death, Full Steam Ahead Down the Crazy-Town Line
Layla’s eyes were glossed over by her tremendous pain, making the blue-gray of her irises stark beneath their glassiness. I skidded to her side, dropped to the floor, and clutched her hand with my own, Magnum’s blood still wet in places along my fingers and palms. I kept my gaze fixed on her face and not on how her body was broken in so many places.
“Hang on, girl,” I said around a choked sob. “Bad guy’s dead now, so just hang the fuck on.”
Her lips parted as if to speak. All that emerged was a weak, shuddering exhale that finished shattering my heart into a million fucking pieces.
No inhale followed it.
Desperation rocked me as I squeezed her hand. There would be no response, I already understood that. I’d witnessed death enough times by now to know what it looked like.
How it felt.
I squeezed anyway, calling her name, over and over again, until my voice grew raspy.
At some point I stopped trying. A deep, tremendous silence settled within me.
