Ice-cold fear slices through the calm I just found. I grab another towel and wrap it around my arm. It immediately spots with deep crimson. My fingers feel weak and clumsy, but it’s different than earlier. Earlier, I was still in control, my body was on autopilot. This time it feels like I’m a light that’s dimming. Like I’m…
No, no, no, no. This can’t be happening.I don’t want to fucking die.
I pull the door open, ignoring the pain in my wrist as I make my way down the hall. My vision sways, and I almost lost my footing. Pulling my purse off the counter, I empty its contents. Spots start lining my vision as I lose focus.
Move quicker, Kat.
I finally find my phone and unlock it with Face ID. The blood coating my hand makes it slip from my grasp before I’m able to grip it properly. Before I can second-guess myself, I dial the number.
He answers on the first ring, but I’m fading fast. My limbs are both heavy and light at the same time. My vision narrows, and my legs quiver as I fall to my knees.
“Kat? Kat! Are you okay?” I’m vaguely aware of Elias’s voice.
I need to do this. I can’t die without it. I need to tell him.
I pull the phone closer to me, the effort draining the last ounce of energy I had before I crumple to the floor completely. “I’m sorry, Elias.” My breathing catches as I push out the words. “I love you.”
The declaration feels both heavy and light as it leaves my mouth. For a second, I think I hear him shouting my name through the phone. I try to hold onto his voice, but it slips through my fingers.
Just like the blood that drips from my veins.
Thirty-Seven
Elias
Fuck.
Thirty-Eight
Elias
Get Up! (feat. Skrillex) – Korn
My fingers bite into the steering wheel as I weave through the streets of Bridgeport. Terror threatens to overwhelm me with the force of a fucking tsunami, but I push it down. I can’t afford to be anything other than laser-focused right now.
The city blurs around me in streaks of neon and brake lights. Every slow-moving car, every pedestrian crossing the road, feels like a nail in the coffin on the seconds slipping through my fingers. I’ve faced down monsters with guns pointed at my chest. I’ve lived through loss, through pain, through darkness, and felt less fear than this. Fear sharpens my instincts and has kept me alive more times than I can count. But this… this feels like something else entirely. This is the sick, clawing certainty that if I don’t reach her in time, my world won’t be one worth walking.
“Gareth, I need you to fucking tell me where she is,” I grind out, gripping the steering wheel even harder, I think it might break.
Gareth sits beside me in the passenger seat, saying nothing but furiously typing on his laptop, trying to find where Kat’s cellphone last pinged. He knows better than to wastewords right now. We’ve worked together for long enough that he understands the tight line I’m walking right now.
I focus on the road, willing myself not to think about the way her voice sounded, or I’ll lose the razor-thin control that I’m clinging to. I shift down a gear and speed through a red light for the second time since I got the call. The fucking call that nearly blew my soul to ash.
When she called, I was at the gym. I’ve spent the last fifty-four hours and thirty-six minutes giving her space. I know she’s dealing with shit, and the last thing I wanted to do was push her away, but it got to me earlier today. I was pacing all over the fucking house waiting to hear from her. I even sent her a message before deciding it was a shitty thing to do and asked Cain to reverse it. I was one snap decision away from showing up at The Ground and forcing her to talk to me.
So instead, I called Gareth, and we hit the gym together. Because what the fuck else was I supposed to do? The gym has been my way to decompress and get shit out of my head ever since things… changed. Push harder, lift heavier, and run faster until the noise in your head quiets down.
But when I saw her call light up my screen, I dropped everything and answered it on the first ring. She said five words, and those five words shattered my world. Her voice was small and weak, as if she was already halfway gone. And then the line went quiet. I didn’t wait for reasoning to kick in. I grabbed Gareth, and we got into the car.
“I got her! She’s at her apartment.”
I don’t hesitate. I swing the car around at the next intersection. My tires scream against the asphalt as the car fishtails slightly before straightening. Someone lays on their horn behind me, but I barely register it. Nothing exists right nowexcept the shrinking distance between Kat and me. I quickly dial Cain on the hands-free.
“Yes, boss?”
“Whatever you’re doing, drop it. Get to Kat’s apartment now.”
“I’ll be there in ten,” he responds curtly before hanging up. The switch is subtle, but I can tell when my friend has been replaced with my enforcer. And my enforcer is who I need right now.
