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30
IRINA
The fingers stroking through my hair weren’t Madison’s. The body beneath mine wasn’t frail and too thin. I wanted to turn to look for her, to make sure the girl was safe.
She needed to be safe.
Above all else, that was all that mattered now.
The car sped around a corner, taking it too fast and hitting a bump, the jolt accompanied by a strange noise. It took far too long for me to realize that the low keening sound came from me, and the noise that was beyond words clawed its way up my raw throat.
“I’m sorry, Butterfly,” Scar said, his voice broken as those scarred hands petted the top of my hair. He tried to work his fingers through the knots, a gentleness in him that I thought had been all I wanted at one point.
To feel like I mattered to him. To feel like I was his world in the way I knew he could be mine. We’d wasted so much time that we would never get back.
My eyes felt heavy, everything in my body weighing far too much to lift. The pain in my limbs faded until there was only numbness. Still, I stared into those familiar onyx eyes that looked so tormented.
I searched inside myself for that piece of me that cared, for the girl who’d gotten butterflies in her stomach every time he said my nickname or even glanced my way.
But she was gone, lost to the void filling my body. Lost in the wake of so much pain that I thought I’d never recover from it.
I didn’t even want to.
The world was ugly. It was broken and beyond repair. Men like Darragh went free, living life to the fullest, while women like me…
Died.
I just wanted to sleep. Just wanted the pain to stop and to go to that place where it didn’t matter anymore. I didn’t know what existed after life...
But it had to be better than this.
“Hey,” Scar whispered, an edge of panic in his voice as my eyes drifted closed. “You’ve got to keep your eyes open, cuore mio.”
I looked up at him, his face going blurry at the edges so that he was nothing but a pair of black eyes surrounded by olive skin. “You can’t fix me,” I said, echoing the words I’d given him when he’d walked out of my apartment all those months ago.
“Watch me,” he said, dropping his head forward until it rested against my forehead. There was no pain, despite the swelling and bruises that had made my face feel like it wasn’t mine anymore.
There was just nothing.
“It’s okay,” I said, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Butterfly,” he groaned, clasping my hand in his. He lifted my good arm, wrapping my fingers around the charm he’d placed on my chest. “Butterflies come out of the chrysalis even more beautiful. You’re going to be okay.”
I smiled sadly, using every ounce of strength left in my body to lift my good arm and cup his cheek. “But I was already your butterfly, Scar. Butterflies don’t change again,” I murmured, letting my arm drop back to my side. “They die.”
“Don’t you dare,” Scar warned, shaking his head from side to side. The movement jostled me, but he didn’t seem to care, as it made my eyes spring open. I hadn’t even noticed they’d started to close again, too absorbed in the feeling of his gaze on me one last time. “How am I supposed to live without my heart?”
He touched his hand to my chest, pressing it into the faint beat there. Something wet touched my face, dripping onto my cheekbone.
And I slipped away.
