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I bite my trembling lips, trying to hold back the sob in my chest.

And he left. It was the right thing to do — the right thing for both of us — but fuck, this hurts. He left and it fucking hurts.

Tears rush to fill my eyes and I shake my head, feeling ridiculous.

I haven’t cried over a boy since high school.

“Anna?”

I spin around on the floor, gasping at the man standing in my bedroom doorway.

I look up into his smirking face and sigh with relief. “Trevor, dammit…”

Trevor throws up his hands and laughs. “Hold your fire, Silva,” he says. “I’m one of the good guys.”

CHAPTER 30

MILO

Turns out, dying takes forever.

He wasn’t wrong about the agonizing pain part. I should have kept berating him until he shot me again. At least it would have been over and done with and I wouldn’t have spent the last who-knows-how-long replaying last-minute fantasies in my head about being saved.

Maybe Anna will come back for one last kiss.

The door opens.

“Milo?” she says, the faintest gasp on her breath.

I look up and she’s there in the doorway. She covers her mouth with a shocked hand and rushes over, falling to her knees beside me.

“Oh, my god! Milo?”

She cradles my head. Her face blurs.

“Mi— Jake! Hold on!”

Her hands are red, covered in blood.

“I love you, Jake.”

I force my eyes open and look around my empty living room. I’m still breathing. Still bleeding. Still here.

My tongue tastes like pennies. My fingers tingle. I wish my heart would just stop already. I wish the pain would end. I wish she really would come back for that last kiss.

The door opens wide. There’s a shape of a man in the frame. Cruel tricks of a dying mind, I suppose.

He steps forward and stands above me.

“Milo.”

He’s loud yet calm, like he’s seen this shit before.

I squint, trying to keep my sight together, but his face refuses to cooperate.

“Milo, wake up.”

I lick my dry lips. This is no mind trick. He’s really here.