Hands. Too rough on skin that feels paper-thin. Voices. Too loud in a brain that can’t process them.
Then, nothing. Darkness swallows me whole again.
? ? ?
The next time I wake, the tube is gone.
The lights are dim—it’s night. My body feels unfamiliar. Weak. Like I haven’t moved in forever.
Because I haven’t.
The nurse tells me I was in a coma for months. The bullet went through my lower chest, nicked something important. I don’t retain much. I hear life support. I hear we almost lost you. The rest fades into static.
My mind feels sluggish, like it’s learning how to think again. My chest aches—not just from the injury, though I have a phantom pain—but from the gaping, hollow space left behind.
Because they’re not here.
No Kaz, growling at the doctors. No Keir, silently hovering while pretending not to hover. No Dario calling me pumpkin just to make me smile.
No Max. No Lily.
Panic rises fast, thundering through my ribcage.
Did something happen to them?
The monitor spikes. Alarms beep rapidly.
The nurse rushes in. “Selene, you need to relax!”
I try to breathe, but it feels like my throat’s closing. My vision narrows, black at the edges.
“Oh my god, Selene!” a familiar voice yells.
“Breathe, girl. I’m right here.” Lily.
Her hands cup my face as she breathes with me, guiding me in through the nose, out through the mouth.
I mimic her rhythm until the world settles and color returns to the room.
“I’m right here,” she says softly, eyes glossy with unshed tears.
“I-I…” My voice cracks, the words more rasp than sound.
She grabs a cup and presses the straw to my lips. I sip slowly at first, then greedily, the cold water sliding down like heaven.
When I open my eyes again, Lily is smiling—but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Where are they?” I ask, my voice hoarse but steady.
Her smile falls away like a crumbling wall. She can’t look at me.
“Tell me,” I whisper, grabbing her hand.
“They left.” Her tone is clipped, furious. “The only reason we knew they were still alive is because they served Barbra up to us on a silver platter.”
My heart stops in my chest. They left me.
The men I let myself fall for, that I desperately wanted to be mine…. gone.
