Miles of flame over my head. I’ll never reach the surface but I try. Kick for it. Reach for it. I can’t open my eyes. They’re too dry. My stomach turns. Maybe they’re burned-out holes in my skull. My eyelids stick. Protest. I’m not ready to open them.
I open them anyway.
Fuck.
All-white walls batter my eyes and the rest is a one-two punch. A spear of pain through my chest, slim and sharp, and sandpaper sheets on my back, on my bed.
Not my bed. A hospital bed.
No.
No.
A tray by the bed crashes to the floor. I don’t remember getting up but I’m here now, standing, tearing at a hospital gown woven out of razors. My skin is already on fire. If this fucking thing touches me for one second longer, I’ll burst into a second layer of flame. I’ll be a pillar of ash. The fabric rips and I drop it. There’s more. Plastic. In my hand. I tear that off, too. My pants are the only article of clothing not killing me. An alarm goes off somewhere close by. The sound sets off another trip around the wheel. Pain crushes in. It’s more than I’ve felt. It’s more, and it’s bigger, and fear is a dog with its teeth clamped on the back of my neck.
I can’t shake it off. Can’t so much as lift my arms to wrestle it away.
Not again. Please, not again. Amen.
Two nurses run in, their blue scrubs blurred at the edges. They come toward me too fast. They’re not going to touch me. No one is going to touch me, not here, not now, when I’m already flayed and bleeding—
“Not another step.” My voice is gravel and glass. The backs of my knees are against the bed. Don’t remember backing up. Both of them stop and look up at me. Up. I must be tall. But I can’t remember—I can’t think—“Another step and I’ll kill both of you. It would be a pleasure.”
“Mr. Morelli,” the first one says. She’s got dark hair. The other one’s blonde. I don’t trust the blonde one. Not for a fucking second. “You can’t be out of bed.”
“The fuck I can’t.” My chest is caving in. One of my lungs isn’t working right. It feels weak, but I don’t remember that from when Eva brought me here. She was driving the car with a halo. No. That was a long time ago. Unless it wasn’t. “You took my clothes. You took—”
“Leo. It’s okay.” Eva comes through the door, both hands up, like I’m a dangerous animal who might do anything.
Another searing breath. I can’t place her. Can’t place her clothes. She wasn’t wearing that when she drove me here.
The blonde nurse puts out an arm to stop her. “Ms. Morelli, this is an unsafe—”
Eva’s shorter than the nurse but the other woman shrinks back at the look in her eyes. “I warned you this would happen. You chose not to believe me. Now look at him.”
Their heads swivel from Eva to me.
“Let me by,” Eva says. I want to be glad she’s here but I don’t know what it means. Whether this is a new nightmare or the same one starting over again.
Eva sidesteps the nurse before she can finish lowering her arm. When she gets closer, my sister puts her hands at her sides. The gesture makes her smaller. Less of a threat. Why? I’m not threatened by her. I’m not afraid of anything. It’s only my heart that’s out of control. Only my body that’s turned to the side, trying to protect itself. I’m not doing that. I’m on fire. Burning down.
“Eva. What—”
The question what year is it dies before it can reach my lips, taken to heaven by the angel who steps through the door.
Haley.
It’s Haley, in a blue sweater that matches her eyes and dark leggings and flats that look like something Eva would wear. Clothes I’ve never seen her in. Her eyes wide with hope and fear and something else.
I move Eva out of the way. Push past the nurses. It hurts like a motherfucker to walk. Every breath is worse than the last one. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except getting to her. Haley moves another half-step into the room and then I’m on top of her. One step back, on instinct, because I’m taller—I can tell how much taller now. Her hands splay out on the wall like they did that night, the first night I saw her. An angel. A sacrifice.
A shattering relief.
That relief rolls into me and detonates. Cuts through the fear and pain like a bullet. Like a rushing wind.
My knees hit the floor first and she’s there, she’s there, I can feel her.
I put my palms on her hips, press my face to her belly, and breathe in new clothes and the scent of her skin. The relief is beyond measure. Relief that I’m here, in the present, and not in the hell of the past. Relief that she’s here. She’s alive. She’s alive. Haley’s hands come down on my head. My shoulders. She touches me softly. Like I’m not a monster.
New pressure builds around the knife wound in my lungs. It’s bigger. More expansive. It moves up into my throat and aches there. A balled-up tension I haven’t felt in a long, long time. The kind that can only be released by crying.
There are more important things to do than cry.
I get to my feet again, skimming my hands all the way up her arms to her shoulders to her neck to her face. Not a scratch. She doesn’t have a single scratch. I kiss her forehead, her temples, her cheekbones. Small talismans against danger. No one will ever hurt you here, or here, or here.
“Leo, you—” Her voice is tight, like she might cry. I love the sight of tears on her face. But there’s nothing to cry about right now. “You can’t do this. You’re—”
Someone in the room starts to say Mr. Morelli and Eva cuts it off with a hiss. I don’t care. I don’t care what anyone says, or what anyone does, because Haley is warm and soft under my hands. I can feel her heartbeat. The floor tilts with the weight of my relief but that doesn’t matter, either. I have us both crowded against the wall. I’ll keep them away from me. I’ll keep them away from her. We’ll be safe.
We’ll be safe.
I kiss her hair, the top of her head. Haley puts her hands on my chest. It hurts like a bruise, that soft touch. It breaks something. I get my hand to her chin—more pain, I don’t care—and tip her face to mine so I can see her. Tears deepen the blue of her eyes. They’re bright and scared and relieved.
Kissing her mouth is the only way to keep living.
Haley lets out a sob against my lips when I do it. She tries to turn her head. “Leo, you’ll hurt yourself.” She pushes against my chest. Less of a bruise, more of a knife. It drives a low noise from me and Haley’s eyes go wide and white. “Did I hurt you?”
“Let me.” It’s the most desperate plea of my life, the most I’ve ever asked of another person. Please. Let me prove to myself that you’re alive.
I kiss her again. Harder. Deeper. Haley stops fighting and I feel the moment she gives in, her body relaxing against the wall. Every taste of her is holy water on the fire I’ve become. The flames recede into a manageable burn.
I know now.
I remember.
The roaring hurt resolves into two distinct halves. My chest is an aching bruise under a slice in my skin that stings and twists. That must be where Ronan’s bullet went in. The thousand cuts on my back are the result of some tripwire being disturbed in my brain, in the nerves. Probably getting shot. The way I landed—