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Maybe even trying to kill him.

“Hey!” I shouted, trying to get their attention. My body was pleading with me not to get too close, but I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

They didn’t even look at me. They were too busy punching, kicking and stepping on that poor person.

What the fuck was their problem? Three on one was no fair fight.

I ripped out my phone from my pocket, sending a message to Damian—four letters and my location.

Help.

I opened up that stupid Life360 app and hit a red button labeled SOS. Maybe that would do something.

Damian would come. And he’d better hurry, because I was going in despite all my better judgement.

“HEY!” I screamed, jogging forward.

The closer I got the more my eyes adjusted to the night, giving shape to the scene before me. The man lay motionless on the ground, barely blocking a storm of fists aimed right to his face. It was only when the attacker pulled back for another direct hit, that my heart suddenly forgot what to do.

I stood there, completely blindsided.

“Silas?”

It couldn’t be.

And maybe it was the sound he made. One I hadn’t ever heard him make before. A sound of pain. A sound of fear.

A sound I knew all too well.

None of it mattered, I realized at that moment. Not the lies, the mask, the stabbing. My body moved regardless, my feet guiding my path towards him despite me thinking I never wanted to see him again.

I wanted to save him. Hell, the crushing feeling within me told me that I needed to save him. It was a certainty deep in my bones that if I didn’t reach him in time, some part of me would die right alongside him.

Seeing him like that—broken, helpless—was something I could never tolerate.

And seeing him brutalized filled me with such rage, I wasn’t even afraid of the group of men anymore. I could give less of a shit that there were more of them than me.

Because Silas was mine. My Thorne. And this might have been the first time I actually thought about it—but either way, I knew it was real.

I pushed through all of them. Like a battering ram. Straight to the center where Silas lay.

“What the hell are you doing? Get off of him, you sick fucks!”

To my dismay—Silas lay there among them, a crumpled heap between those punk assholes. His body twisted at angles that made bile rise in the back of my throat. His left hand didn’t even look like it was a part of his body anymore. I could barely process what I was seeing through the edge of darkness creeping into my vision.

But I saw enough to know that he was in serious trouble.

Silas was clutching his midsection, fingers slick and trembling around a gaping wound I could smell before I could comprehend it—that copper stench of blood rose upward. My throat seized. I had to choke back the vomit, had to force my eyes to stay open against the urge to look away from such a sight.

Then I saw the wound.

A jagged, thick shard, embedded deep in his abdomen. Instantly my panic rose, because there was blood, too much, way too fucking much, spreading across the concrete beneath him like an oil slick.

His face was almost unrecognizable. But our eyes locked. And the sound he made in the back of his throat caused goosebumps to spread across my arms.

“Get out of the way, drunkard. We’re busy,” one of the attackers sneered, shoving past me with a shoulder check that barely registered. These men were so confident that a whole other person catching them in the act of such brutality didn’t bother them in the slightest. They thought I was a homeless person off the street.

I stood frozen, unable to tear my eyes off of Silas’s face. Weakly, he shook his head.