Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I didn’t waste a second. Dylan and I left after the healers, running past the ambulance they loaded Emmy into and toward my parked car. I threw myself in, not giving a fuck that I was getting blood on the steering wheel.
“Holy shit, holy shit,” Dylan was saying, low but still audible. “Fuck.”
The ambulance turned on its siren and lights and hurried down the street. I tailed them, running the same red lights, blowing past the same stop signs. “We have to tell the pack,” I said.
“I’ll call Chris. He’ll tell the rest.”
Dylan didn’t waste any time. He called and told Chris everything. His voice shook when he got to the news about Emmy, but he held it together.
I don’t know how. I don’t know how I was holding it together.
This felt like my fault. I had texted him to come over, that I needed to talk to him and his sister. That things were getting scary. He came because I asked him to. He’d gotten shot because I brought him there.
My bloody grip tightened around the steering wheel. I took a deep breath to try and control my racing heart. The roads began to widen, the homes of my neighborhood being replaced by shops and businesses, all of them closed at this time of night. The ambulance slowed and pulled into a large garage next to a two-story building with blocky red letters reading “Medical Center” as the only descriptor. It was also one of the only buildings on the block with all of its lights on.
There was a small parking lot in front of the building’s main entrance, still in sight of the emergency dock. I parked and watched as the two healers were joined by two older-looking druids wearing the same white coats that traditionally trained medical doctors wore, their scrubs underneath a dark green.
“He’s there because of me.” Saying the words out loud hurt. Each one felt like a silver bullet. “I feel so guilty.”
Dylan was quiet for a moment. He watched them push Emmy’s stretcher into the hospital. “You can’t blame yourself for this, Miles. You weren’t the one who pulled that trigger. You went there with the best intentions. You were trying to save his sister, I could see how desperate you were to try and save her, even after everything she’d done. That speaks to your character, and it also speaks to your purpose tonight.”
I dropped my head back on the headrest and snapped my eyes shut. This all felt so surreal in a nightmarish sort of way. Like I was about to wake up and decide I had to stay up in order to avoid falling back into the same horrible dream.
“I should have listened to Hunter, and turned her in to the council.” So many what-ifs rang in my head. Like a hyperactive storm cell had planted itself inside the folds of my brain, giving off constant bolts of lightning and claps of thunder. I could hear what Dylan was telling me, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out my own self-hate in that moment.
All through my life, I carried guilt. It had become a constant, persistent weight on my back. Since birth I’d been carrying it. Adding Emmy into the equation felt unbearable. How much more guilt could I tolerate before I broke?
I dropped my head forward. Looked down at the bloody hands in my lap, bloodstains on my jeans. “If he dies…” I gulped down a rogue cry.
Dylan rubbed my arm, gently massaging before he slid his fingers through mine. He squeezed his clean hand through my bloodied one. It felt like I’d tainted him somehow. I had dragged even Dylan into this situation. Yes, fate had tied us together, but he didn’t ask for any of this when he met me, when he fell for me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. The guilt forming into a volcano of emotion seconds from erupting.
“For what?”
“For getting you involved with this.”
“Miles, all you got me involved in was a new appreciation for flowers, a new subscription to a movie app that I keep forgetting to cancel, and a man who I started loving from the second I met him.” He squeezed my hand. He didn’t seem bothered by the blood. He didn’t seem to be hollowed out by persistent guilt, either. I needed to let it go, I just didn’t know how. “You don’t need to apologize for anything.”
“You could have gotten hurt, too. But you saved me.”
“I did, didn’t I?” He gave me a wink. “Just pictured you as some douche I wanted to slam into the boards. Wasn’t too hard.” He chuckled and smiled. God, it felt so good to see him smile and to hear that laugh. It was such a needed bright light in the midst of such a dark, dark night. “Seriously though, I’d do it again.”