Why’d she do this?
I pushed her to do it.
This is all my fault.
Chapter 20
Sebastian
Thesoundofsirensgrows louder until it drowns out all other noise. Rattling the windows. Rattling me.
Red and blue lights strobe through the glass, painting her skin in flickers.
Boots thunder down the hall—voices urgent, clipped, and way too fucking calm. Hands reach for me. Gloved and steady.
"Sir, we need to take her now—"
"No!" My arms tighten around her, even knowing these men are here to help, to try to save her. But it's like every muscle in my body is seizing. "No, you can't. She needs me.”
“She needs me!"
"Sir, please let go." The paramedic pleads with me, but I can't. My arms are stone around her dying body. If I let go, she might slip further away—into a place I can't follow. If I let go, it means she's leaving me.
Another paramedic crouches low in front of me, voice softer. "We're going to help her, but you need to trust us. Don't take away her only chance of surviving."
Trust.The word tastes like poison. I never trusted anyone but her, and look what happened. Now I'm supposed to hand her over to strangers who don’t know how she sounds when she laughs, or the way she hates silence when she sleeps. They don’t know the sound of her saying my name like it mattered. Leaning down, I place one last kiss on her cold, pale lips and whisper, “I love you.”
I don't want to be the reason she dies here. I have to let them take her.
This time, when he reaches for her, I let him.
They peel her inch by inch away from me. Her arm slips from my shoulder, her hair sliding through my fingers—and then she's gone.
I sit on the floor in a puddle of water and blood, barely managing to hang on to myself. I can hear them taking her away. I hear one of the men say she has a faint pulse, and that's the only shred of hope I allow myself—because if she doesn't make it, neither will I.
***
The drive to the hospital is a blur of lights and sirens, but I'm not in the ambulance.
They shoved me back, strapped her down, and shut the doors. I was left standing there, screaming until my voice gave out. Roman and Ace dragged me into a car, but I don't remember moving. I don't remember breathing.
Now I'm in the waiting room. Fluorescent lights humming above me—way too bright, too sterile. The smell of disinfectantclaws at my nose. My clothes are stiff with Mary's dried blood, my skin matching. I can't stop rubbing my hands together, as if it will erase it, but it only smears deeper into my skin.
Every time a door opens, my head snaps up. My stomach knots so hard I bend forward, choking on bile as my chest seizes again and again, like I've forgotten how to breathe.
I see Mary in flashes behind my eyes every time they close—
Her head thrown back in laughter at some joke.
The way she'd shove me away when I teased her too much.
I press my fists into my eyes until I see stars, until the memories blur into the white walls of the hospital. Time stretches, like it's mocking me from this fucking waiting room. Five minutes feels like an eternity. Every second without any news is a new knife twisting deeper.
A doctor finally appears—blue scrubs and tired eyes—she approaches our group. My body launches out of the chair before my brain catches up.
"She's okay." Her voice is quiet, understanding. "It'll take her some time to recover from what happened. Is there any family we should contact?"
“I’m her only family.” I'm barely holding on by a thread. I need to see that she's okay with my own eyes.
