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“No, Raf. Youmust.Do you understand me? You must. Please…”
“How can you ask me that?” he asked, anguish dripping from each word. “How can you think I’d leave you alone even for one moment?”
“You can barely move, Raf,” she tried to explain calmly. “You wouldn’t be helping me. But if you escaped… Then you could get help,” she suggested—the only way she could calm him. “Right? If you went back home, you could send help.”
He seemed to mull over her words for a moment.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he cried out, his arms tightening around her body.
“I don’t want you to leave either, Raf. But you must. Please? For me…” she whispered lovingly. “You must get home for me, okay?”
“If I get home… I can get help,” he finally agreed, nodding. “I’ll come back for you and save you.”
“Exactly.” She gave him a sad smile. “See. It’s that simple.”
He pursed his lips, his brows scrunched together as he mulled over her words.
“I’ll come back for you and we’ll be together,” he repeated.
Noelle could only nod, her soul splintering as she looked into his blue, blue eyes—eyes she was unlikely to see ever again.
“I was greedy,” she confessed. “I was so damn selfish and I put you in danger. I wish I could do it all over again, but I doubt I’d do anything differently.”
“Don’t. Don’t cry.” He shook his head at her, his own eyes blurry with tears.
Just like before, his words were slurred, his focus almost nonexistent. That didn’t stop Noelle from telling him one last thing though.
“This is goodbye, Raf,” she whispered as she cupped his cheeks. “I love you like I never thought I’d love anyone in my life. I love you like I didn’t think I was capable of. And because I love you so much,” she paused, her eyes misted with tears. “Because I love you so much, I’ll give my life to protect you. I’m sorry about everything I did, yet I can’t be sorry about being with you. In any way possible. And if there is something I wish… It’s that at some point in the future you might remember me. That you might remember me fondly as a girl you once loved… A girl who loved you with all her might. Please remember me…”
Please promise me you’ll never love another.The words were barely above a whisper, and she was unsure whether he heard her or not. She knew he was unlikely to remember her—maybe ever. Just like she knew that he would escape this hell and he would return to his old life, where there would be absolutely no trace of her.
He would forget everything about her and eventually he would… move on.
“Promise me you’ll never love another.” A savage cry was wrenched from her as she peppered kisses all over his face, the thought of him with someone else in the future threatening to ruin her.
But the issue was that she was already ruined—she’d done it with her own hand. Now… She was just paying for her sins.
“I love you,only you,” he told her with just as much emotion. “I could never forget you. My light. My love. My… everything.”
“I love you too, Raf,” Noelle whispered as she brushed her lips against his.
One last kiss.
To last her for an eternity to come.
“I’ll come for you. I swear to you I’ll come for you,” he repeated emphatically.
Noelle nodded, a strained smile pulling at her lips. She knew he would likely not remember that promise once the drug wore off.
It was the hardest thing she’d ever done to leave him by himself there, so vulnerable, so open to attack. But this was the only hope she still had left—that he would survive. This was why she was willing to sacrifice herself.
She helped him hide in the trunk of the car, placing the pouch right next to him, so that he could reach for water if needed.
And with one last look, she left.
It was time to face the music.
With heavy steps, she took out her guns, ready to fire.
