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“I won’t leave you,” she cries, brushing the hair from my face.
Turning my cheek, I hate that I still crave her touch after everything I know. “Ya must.”
She realizes why I turned away from her and gasps, removing her hands with shame. “We didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t know,” she says, tears streaming into her lips, lips I want to kiss over and over again.
“But now we do. And we have to stop. I can’t be around ye, Babydoll, ’cause I want ya how a brother should not want a sister. Please go. I need ya to be safe.”
She looks at me, pleading I tell her it’ll be all right. But it won’t be. Nothing will be ever again.
She slams her mouth to mine, kissing me with finality because we both know this is goodbye. We cannot deny these feelings for one another, and until we learn how to deal with them, then we need to be apart.
“I…love you,” she whispers against my lips, cupping my cheeks and drawing us brow to brow. “And I’m so sorry for betraying you.”
I taste her salty kisses and surrender—one last time. “I love ye, too. I always will. But I can’t be anywhere near ya. I promised ya if ye were a threat…I’d kill ye. But I can’t hurt ya. Nor can I trust ya. So, goodbye, Baby.”
She nods jerkily, still clutching onto me, never wanting to let go. “Ex favilla nos resurgemus,” she says, reciting the tattoo across my collarbone. “From the ashes we will rise…I’ll never give up.”
Planting a soft kiss to her forehead, I let go of my humanity because I’ll never love anyone as much as I do her and that makes me weak. Something I refuse to be ever again.
“I’ll cover ya,” I say, gesturing she’s to make a run for the driver’s side.
She hugs her gun, taking three deep breaths.
A thought suddenly occurs to me. “How’d ya know he was my uncle?”
Babydoll said Uncle Sean shot Danny. How did she know who he was? I never introduced them.
Before I can ask her, however, I hear footsteps advancing toward us.
“Go!” I scream, coming to a stand and guarding Babydoll with my body as I lead her toward the driver’s side.
My focus is straight ahead, which is an error I’ll regret for the rest of my life, as I don’t see a masked man emerge from the dense bushlands to my right. He aims his gun and fires a bullet which lodges into my chest.
But I persevere. It’s merely a scratch.
Only a couple more feet and Babydoll will be safe.
Just as I’m about to open the door and shove her inside, someone screams my name, and that person is Connor, who dives in front of me, before collapsing into a twisted heap on the ground. Everything comes to a screeching halt.
“Connor?” I ask, suddenly feeling faint, and when I press a hand over my chest, I realize thatscratchis actually a lot worse than I thought.
I drop to my knees beside Connor, gasping for air.
“Punky!” Babydoll cries, catching me from falling. “Oh my God. You’re hurt b-bad.”
I lean into her, my lungs wheezing as I attempt to breathe. But it doesn’t end this way.
“Connor?” I shove at his shoulder, flinching when my hand is saturated in his blood.
He groans, his eyes flickering open. “Do-don’t…” He attempts to speak, but blood trickles from his mouth.
“Save yer strength,” I say, pressing my hands over the wound to his stomach. “Help is comin’.”
“Babydoll, call the peelers!” I don’t care that they’ll find a lorry full of drugs. I’ll take the blame as long as it’ll save Connor because he just saved me. He took a bullet for me.
“They’re comin’,” Connor pants, peering up at me, gulping in mouthfuls of air. “I called them.”
“What?”
