Behind me, her voice dropped to a whisper, confused, shaken. “Flame? Does that mean?—”
“Shh.” Nathan’s voice cut in low, urgent. I caught the sound of him guiding her back, footsteps retreating. “I’ll explain later.”
The door shut, and I kept moving.
Up the stairs, I ignored my instinct to go left to my room and went right, straight to Calix’s bedroom, where I laid her out on his bed. The sheets immediately grew stained beneath her, and her breathing was shallow and uneven.
Another ragged breath slipped from her lips, barely there, and the thumping in my chest grew frantic, desperate.
My hand was already on my phone, fingers flying as I sent the message.
Rack:Your room. Now.
Throwing my phone on the nightstand, I dropped to my knees and took her hand in mine, holding it tight like I could anchor her there.
“Stay,” I muttered under my breath. “Just… stay here… with me… us.”
The air shifted, and Calix appeared like a flash of light, mid-step, voice already forming. “I don’t know why you want to meet in my room but?—”
He stopped. Everything in him locked up.
His eyes landed on the bed, on her, and whatever he’d been about to say died in his throat. He moved in the next breath, faster than I could track, landing on the bed at her other side. His hands hovered, not quite touching, as his gaze snapped between her face and the wound.
“What the fuck?—”
“I can’t save her, Calix.”
His head whipped toward me, eyes blown wide, shock hitting hard enough it showed. I swallowed and forced the words out again, this time with everything I had behind them.
“Please, Calix…”
My voice didn’t come out steady. It caught halfway, rough, dragged through my chest as if my grip tightened around her hand could keep her here.
“She’s… She’s my flame. I can’t lose her. Not when I just found her.”
The words hit him.
I saw it, felt it, in the way his whole body jolted, like something had slammed into him head-on. His shoulders jerked back, his breath hitching sharp through his nose as his eyes dropped to where my fingers were wrapped around hers.
He went still for half a second, then surged to his feet, stepping back from the bed like the space between us had suddenly turned volatile. His chest rose and fell fast, each breath shorter than the last, his stare locking onto me with something raw, something that twisted hard in my gut.
It looked like betrayal, and maybe it was.
The girl who had put that spark back into him, the one who made him feel alive… was the same one I was begging him to give to me.
We just stood there.
No movement. No sound. Just the weight of it sitting between us, thick and suffocating.
His face shifted, tightening, loosening, hardening again, like he was running through every thought he didn’t say out loud.
You knew how I felt.
How could you do this?
You call this being a brother? Being loyal?
Why? Why her?
