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“I’m not healing, Bex. The silver is in my system. It’s killing me. I can feel it,” he said.
I tossed the knife to the side and caught his face between my blood-soaked fingers. His eyes were almost pure yellow, glowing as they reflected the faint light of the streetlamps and fire.He turned his head and kissed my palm. I shivered and the vision of his death surfaced from the back of my mind again. It was stuck on repeat, like an unceasing broken record.
“No,” I whimpered. “This isn’t how you die. This isn’t how you’re supposed to die.”
“Rebekah,” he sighed. “It’s okay.”
“No.” I shook my head and looked around us into the utter emptiness of the street. “Somebody help! Help! Somebody!”
I screamed the words as loud as I could, but they echoed off the buildings unanswered. Ingrid’s fire hadn’t grown large enough to attract attention.We were all alone.
“Rebekah, look at me,” Jackson said, his voice growing weaker with every word.
“Stay with me. Don’t give up. I’m gonna get the bullet out, and I’ll call Shado and everything will be okay.”
“She won’t make it,” he said, reaching to brush his fingers over my cheek.“I need you to listen.”
Sobbing, I shook my head. “No, save your strength.”
“I love you, Rebekah. Always have, always will,” he whispered. “This isn’t your fault. My death, is not y—”
“Stop it!” I shrieked, pulling away from his hand. “This is not how you die. I’ve seen what happens to you, and this isn’t it. So, stop saying goodbye.”
“I love you, Rebekah. Don’t forget—” a hacking cough swallowed the rest of his words, and more blood splattered across the ground.
“Help! Someone help!” I shouted again, into the darkness.
“Bex, come here,” he croaked, lifting his hand to my cheek again. “Let me touch you, one more time…”
His hand started to fall before it reached my skin, but I caught it and pressed his palm to my cheek. I wanted to protest, to tell him he wasn’t going to die, but he looked so pale. His fingers around my wrist were so weak.
Leaning over him, I pressed my lips against his, and their warmth was gone, his skin was cold. I started to pull away, but his fingers laced into my hair, and held me in place. His mouth moved against mine, and I tasted the blood on his tongue, but I couldn’t pull away. I didn’t want to pull away. I put everything I had into that kiss. My love, my hope, my desire. Everything. His lips stilled, his grip loosening, falling from the tangled hairs at the nape of my neck..
“No,” I sobbed, pulling back just enough to see that his eyes had closed. He looked so peaceful. “No, Jack. Stay with me. Open your eyes. Stay with me.”
I shook him, but he didn’t respond. His head rolled to the side, and his hand fell back against the ground.
“Jack, open your eyes. Please. You can’t leave me here, you can’t go. I didn’t get to say it back,” I sobbed. “I didn’t get to say it back.”
17
Helpless
I pressed my jacket against his abdomen again, desperate to staunch the flow of blood, and pulled my cellphone from my back pocket. Swiping my finger across the surface left a red streak, but the screen remained dark. I wrapped the end of my shirt around my fingers and wiped them clean, but the phone still wouldn’t respond. Every inch of me was soaked. The rain had killed the battery. I couldn’t call for help, I needed someone to find us. I needed to get to a hospital, any hospital.
“Help!” I cried desperately at the top of my lungs. My throat felt raw, but I pushed the pain aside. Jackson wasn’t healing, I couldn’t call anyone, and my magic felt so cold and still in my gut I knew it wouldn’t surface even if I spent hours reaching for it. That realization was enough to knock me back into reality. I had no magic, but I’d seen his death, and this wasn’t it. This wasn’t how Jackson Sinclair would die.
The bright lights of Bourbon Street glittered across the wet ground in the distance, like a beacon of hope. Scrambling into a crouch, I looped my arms under Jackson’s shoulders, and pulled. If I could just get there, someone was bound to hear me shouting. Someone would come. Someone would help.
But Jackson was heavy. Too heavy. My boots slipped on the wet concrete only a few steps from where he’d fallen, and I collapsed.
“Shit!” I shouted, into the sidewalk. I couldn’t get my feet under me again. All I could do was pull his body to the closest wall and cradle him against my chest, my tears mixing with the rain. “Jack, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t go. I need you.”
I rested my cheek against his temple and closed my eyes. Touching his skin sent the vision reeling through my mind again, but at this point it was a comfort watching him die in bed. It meant he wasn’t dead now. He couldn’t be. This was not how he was supposed to die. I’d watch that image over and over for the rest of my life if it meant he lived through this.
The rain slowed to a crawl, and I gazed down at him, unable to breathe. He looked like a ghost. The only color he had left was the stain of blood on his skin.
Blood. Therewassomething I could do. Jackson had slipped too far for Shado to help him. He needed a hospital, Tulane. That was where Isaac usually worked. That was where they had to go. Jackson needed his doctor, his Alpha, the leader of his ancestral wolf pack, and my blood could get us there. Digging through my pockets I searched for the knife I’d used on Jackson’s wound, but it wasn’t there. I’d left it in the street.
