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This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not after everything.
Fiv
e minutes earlier Keaty had been alive, robust and annoyed with me as usual. Now he was bleeding out in my arms, and nothing I could do was going to stop it from happening.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
A man like Keaty was meant to go down in a blaze of glory. But this? This was meaningless. Dying here had no value. It did nothing but prove a cruel point, a lesson on kindness I didn’t need to be taught again.
“Keaty…” I wiped my tears away with the back of my wrist.
“I hope…you know…I’m proud of you.”
Oh God. “Don’t talk like that. You never talk like that.”
“When…will I…get another…chance?” He coughed up another bubble of blood, and I tried my best to clean it off his face. I wasn’t sure how much dignity mattered at a time like this, but if it was the only thing I could offer him, I would provide it without question.
“You’re going to be okay.” But I was lying. I knew now this situation was far from okay.
Inside me, shock and the sadness it brought along with it were transforming into something new. The spiraling agony of my own fear was twisting itself into a pure, red-hot anger. The intensity of my hatred was so great I could hear my pulse hammering in my ears, and everything else became white noise.
This was precisely what I felt when I was healing, only instead of rebuilding myself, I was unraveling. I was losing control, and if I didn’t maintain a grip on my humanity, it would evaporate. I could feel it tugging free like a rope slipping through my fingers.
I needed to stay focused.
If I let myself become someone else, I wouldn’t be in a mindset to keep the others safe. I would do whatever the monsters inside me wanted, and there was only one thing they both wanted right then.
Jock’s blood.
I kissed Keaty’s head again, my tears running free now.
“It’s all okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“I never told you…” He wheezed once and began to cough violently, his face contorting with pain as he struggled to finish his thought. Desmond held him in place, and the werewolf’s expression wasn’t a hopeful one. He knew what was coming.
“You can tell me later,” I said.
“Secret. Let him say it.” Desmond’s eyes were wet, and though his tears didn’t fall, the anguish he felt was apparent enough. Des didn’t even know Keaty that well.
His sadness was all for me.
“What didn’t you tell me?” I whispered, lowering my head so Keaty wouldn’t have to struggle for breath.
“I love…”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence.
I kept my ear to his mouth, waiting and hoping his final word would come. Instead his last breath rattled against my skin, and the temperature of his lips changed within an instant.
Keaty was gone.
Chapter Ten
My world stopped turning.
Time stood still.
In that moment, there was nothing but me and my grief. I was engulfed by a sadness so complete it overwhelmed even my PTSD and swallowed up any self-pity I was carrying.
