Page 129 of A Sinful Gravity

In that instant, my mind went blank. My legs felt like lead. I watched those two harsh headlights rapidly expand in my vision. Death's shadow engulfed me in that second. I even lost the instinct to scream.

"Luna! Move!"

A heart-wrenching roar nearly shattered my eardrums. Before I could react, a powerful hand grabbed my shoulder. I was thrown with tremendous force.

I lost my balance, hitting the hard concrete heavily. The impact sent me rolling twice, my palms and knees scraping raw against the rough surface, searing pain spreading through my body.

Then came a dull, violent impact. Glass shattering and metal twisting in an ear-splitting cacophony. The ground itself seemed to shake.

I sat on the ground, heart pounding, and looked up. The scene I saw made my heart nearly stop, my breath cutting off completely. That image became a nightmare I could never escape.

Cassian.

He'd pushed me away but hadn't fully dodged.

He stood where I'd just been. His whole body flew through the air like a broken leaf, flung by that black SUV, crashing into the green buffer zone by the roadside.

The vehicle veered off course, too, smashing into a fire hydrant. Water shot skyward, refracting an eerie, desolate light in the sunset.

And Cassian... he lay in the rain among maple leaves and blood. His white shirt rapidly turning red.

My mind went blank.

"Cassian!"

I let out a piercing scream, crawling and scrambling toward him. My heels had fallen off when I fell. I ran barefoot across glass shards and cold puddles, the pain in my feet completely absent.

I knelt in the pool of blood, trembling as I pulled his upper body into my arms.

"Cassian! Cassian, look at me!" I sobbed, my hands desperately trying to cover the blood pouring from his chest. But that hot liquid gushed like a broken dam through my fingers, staining my proud red dress.

His face was ghostly pale. Those once sharp, cold blue eyes now looked scattered. He coughed up a thick mouthful of blood, his chest heaving violently.

His blood-stained hand trembled upward, struggling to grasp something. I quickly grabbed his hand and pressed it to my face, tears falling uncontrollably into his palm.

"Good... " With each word, more blood spilled from his mouth. "Luna, you're okay... thank God..."

He looked at me with no fear in his eyes, only a kind of relieved peace.

"Don't talk! Stop talking!" I felt my heart being torn open. My whole body shook. The terror of losing him swept through me.

"Luna..." His fingers lightly brushed my face, blood trickling from his mouth. "I'm sorry... for before... don't be sad... I want you to be free..."

"Stop talking!" I screamed, pressing my hands to his chest, trying to stop the blood, but it flowed through my fingers, warm and sticky, impossible to stop. "Stop talking! Did you hear me! Cassian! You're not allowed to die!"

He smiled. A light, brief smile.

"Laila..." he said. "Tell her... her daddy loves her very much..."

"You tell her yourself!" I shouted at him. "You tell her yourself! She's waiting for you to braid her hair! Did you hear me!"

His eyes slowly closed.

"Cassian! Cassian! Open your eyes! You're not allowed to sleep! Did you hear me! You're not allowed to sleep!"

I felt all my resolve and resentment completely collapse in that moment. Those chasms I thought we could never cross became utterly insignificant the second he fell.

I was wrong. I was so wrong.