Page 232 of Breathe Like Hell

This is wrong.

“No!” I screamed. “Tell me you’re lying!”

But Mason didn’t say anything at all.

My fingers went numb.

I couldn’t feel my feet anymore.

My stomach twisted so violently I thought I was going to be sick.

I couldn’t swallow.

Every muscle in my body pulled tight, waiting for Mason to tell me he was lying.

He still wasn’t saying anything else.

No.

“Mason! Please!” I yelled desperately.

I watched his throat move as he swallowed hard.

“Take me to him! Go get him and bring him back!”

His lips pressed together in a tight line and he shook his head.

No.

This can’t happen.

My knees buckled, my vision tunneling as I hit the ground.

A scream ripped out of my mouth, an animalistic noise that burned my throat on the way out, a noise that hardly sounded like it was coming from me.

But it was.

I couldn’t stop screaming.

I shook my head over and over, my whole body trembling powerfully in a way I had no ability to stop. Every gasp became another sob and then another scream and I couldn’t get enough air as much as I tried.

My teeth were chattering, my vision blurring, my body folding up smaller and smaller on the ground.

No.

I was just with him, I⁠—

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

MASON

Dakota curled into herself on the floor, debris and broken glass all around her, cutting into her palms. She screamed and sobbed, her blood and ichor dripping on the wood while I could do nothing but watch. All my emotions bled into one dark cloud of anger and agony, a storm blotting out any light I’d ever experienced.

Every noise out of her mouth pulled me back to that night.

The truck swerving off the road.

Dakota’s bleeding and broken body.