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Before I get the chance to turn around, Kias wraps his arm around my neck and kicks my wounded leg. I scream out as he attempts to drag me behind a car, blood trailing us now as the bullet goes deeper inside my leg. I scream through his tight grasp around my neck before he throws me to the ground. There is no time to waste, so even though I’m in excruciating pain, I turn over in an attempt to crawl. Before I get too far, he grabs my ankles and drags me back toward him.
I fight for my life, but mostly I’m fighting for Romeo’s because I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this to save him. Kias shoots at me, but in typical Kias fashion, it pings off the pavement and hits a car next to us. The car alarm joins the others that have been going off for the past half an hour. I can’t bring myself to move any further because his wet boot is now pressed against my chest.
I can see the gleam of my gun just out of reach to my left, and I make the stupid, desperate move to right for it. Of course, he catches me, stomps on my wrist with his other boot, and I yell out.
“Ki—as.” I gasp through the bit of air I can take in. Just as he lowers his gun towards me, blood splashes from his arm, and he yells out, clutching at it in shock. I use this time to grab my gun and force my throbbing wrist to bear the weight of it as I cock it up to him.
“Grab him!” Kias calls, and I know Romeo took that shot because he’s barreling straight for Kias. Just before he can reach him, Kias turns his gun towards me. But before he can fire, I take the shot, and it soars straight to his heart. He topples to the ground instantly, and Romeo runs to my side, pulling me away from the pool of blood that belongs to Kias and me.
“Holy shit!” I stare at Kias in utter disbelief that I killed this man. Yes, I’ve killed before, but not a Mikhailov and not someone I grew up around.
“Are you okay?” Romeo and Koa and at my side, crouched down to look me in the eyes, but I’m stunned. I think I’ve lost too much blood because nothing is making any sense anymore.
“Kira.” Romeo takes my face in his hands, and I force my eyes to look into his. It feels like my head is in a jar of honey, and I am fighting the urge to stop fighting it and drown. “Stay focused. Okay?”
“Okay.” my voice sounds far and foreign. Koa is tending to my wound as a few of his alliances head straight for me. The last thing I remember is Romeo scooping me up into his arms and running away from everyone.
—
When I awake, there is a chorus of chatter around me. My squinting eyes can only take so much fluorescent light, but I don’t care. I need to know what's happening. Where am I? Is Romeo okay?
I stopped wondering why I care so much about the time, and I realized caring at all meant something. And I’ll be damned if I die before I tell him.
“Romeo?” My raspy voice shuts the voices up.
“Key?” It’s Koa. His warm hand grabs mine, and his face buries into my chest. I’m feeling things right now more than I’m seeing, and I’m hoping this is temporary.
“Where’s Romeo?” I ask, and Koa laughs.
“You really have a one-track mind.”
“What?”
“Romeo went home.”
“Home?”
“Back to LA.”
“I was thinking we can stay in Paris a while as we plot our takeover and—”
“Romeo’s gone?” I force my eyes open the rest of the way to see a group of the men who helped us today. Koa raises his head and toggles his eyes between mine. “He— he left?” His brows furrow as he slowly nods.
The pang in my chest coincides with the memory of him wanting so badly to forget about me. He really meant it, and nothing that’s happened has changed his mind about how he sees me. I thought he really cared, thought there was something so undeniable between us that he couldn’t stay away. I shake my head in disbelief. He doesn’t care about me.
I refuse to even think about the L-word at a time like this because regardless of what I was on the cusp of admitting to myself, I am not an idiot. Caring so deeply will only get me in trouble, and loving someone is the opposite of indifference. That's what I have to be— indifferent.
The next day I barely want to be awake, so I choose to let the drugs they’ve put me on lull me in and out of dreams. Most of them are me imagining Romeo coming here and carrying me home or telling me things I cannot repeat in a conscious state because it’s too painful to know that, in reality, he feels the opposite. The most daunting fact of it all is that that feeling of never being home is still here. Though Koa is back, I somehow have not shaken the loneliness within. Now I’m scared I’ll never feel the way Romeo has made me feel with anyone else— I know I won’t.
After I am released from the hospital, I stay back in Paris for a couple of days, trying to collect my belongings. I’m prepared to run and stay running to gather more allies. Koa doesn’t love the idea, but he can’t control me, and I can’t be tied down to one place. If I hope to shake this wretched hopeless hole in my heart, I have to keep moving.
After saying goodbye to Koa, accepting a little letter he hands me with probably a plethora of sappy shit in it, I jump into the car waiting for me at the end of the sidewalk. I wave goodbye one last time, hopping in the back seat. This will be good. I can be happy without Romeo.
The car begins to move, and I don’t pay attention at first, but after about twenty minutes, we should be at the airport. Instead, we are driving past open vineyards. What the hell is going on? I slowly pull out my gun and lean forward, pressing it to the driver's head when I feel that pull in my chest that only happens when—
“Woah!” Romeo pulls the car over, and my jaw drops.
“W-what—” He reaches over to the seat beside him and grabs an old-fashioned picnic basket, stepping out of the car and coming around to my side. He opens my door for me, and I’m too stunned to move. When he sees this, he sets the basket down and reaches inside the car, pulling me out like a child and placing me on the grass.
