Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
T hey say your life flashes before your eyes, but the truth is—it doesn’t. How could your brain possibly replay every pivotal moment, distilling it down to a single snapshot of each event? It can’t.
My life never flashes.
Instead, the present stretches out, agonizingly slow. Cassie’s face comes into view, creased with worry. Her trembling lips move, but the words are muffled. It feels like my insides have been filleted and set ablaze. The pain is so intense, it dulls itself into numbness.
I daren’t look down. I know the second I do, the agony will triple.
So, I focus on Cassie. She’s gripping my face, pleading with me to stay.
I want to stay.
God, I want to fucking stay.
The heartbreak etched into her tear-stained face crushes me. I don’t want to leave her like this.
My throat tightens. Then she disappears from view.
Panic claws at me. This can’t be how I go. Not like this. Not alone .
But before the despair can take hold, she reappears, phone in hand, crying out for help. I can’t make sense of her words, but I feel the pressure on my abdomen.
I groan, the pain clawing its way up my throat and spilling into the street.
“I’m sorry,” Cassie sobs, guilt cracking her voice as she tries to help.
And just like that, the fear dissolves. Cassie’s presence eases the ache. I’m not alone. I’ve had my share of injuries. It comes with the life I lead. I’m used to bleeding. I’m prepared for pain.
But I’m not prepared for the look in Cassie’s eyes.
There’s no hiding the terror there. And the second she whispers, “It’s bad,” I know. I know I’m not walking away from this.
My heart pounds erratically, like it’s trying to break free from my chest, desperate to keep me tethered to life.
Each breath is a battle, ragged and uneven, scraping against the inside of my throat like broken glass.
My lungs burn with the effort, hollow and aching, gasping for whatever fragment of oxygen they can steal.
It hurts—God, it hurts—but I try anyway.
I force the next inhale, then the next, because stopping feels like giving up.
The darkness is patient. It creeps in from the edges, slow and insidious, wrapping around my limbs like a vice, dragging me under inch by inch. It whispers promises of peace, of quiet, of an end to the agony. Part of me is tempted. It would be easier to let go.
But I’m not ready. Not yet.
There’s too much I haven’t said. Too much I haven’t done.
Faces float through my mind—Cassie’s most of all—her voice calling out, her hands holding me together.
If I go now, I’ll never get to tell her everything she deserves to hear.
I’ll never get to make this right. I’ll never get to see what could’ve been.
That thought alone makes the pain worth enduring.
So I fight. I claw at the edges of consciousness, refusing to surrender. Because as long as I can still feel, there’s a chance I’m still alive. And I’m not giving that up. Not without one hell of a fight.
My deepest insecurities rise to the surface.
Only Cassie can make me feel this way, so vulnerable.
She deserves so much more, though, so much better than I can give her.
She isn’t safe, not here, not with me. Yet I can’t find it in myself to leave her.
As much as I know this is my fault. Whoever aimed this bullet at me did it with intent, and it could have been Cassie bleeding out instead of me.
I wouldn’t change a thing if it meant she was safe.She’s crying. I can feel her tears hit my cheeks, falling hot against the growing cold. Her voice is cracked and raw, breaking on my name as she begs me not to go. “Stay with me, please. Stay with me.”
“Get…inside…” I manage to pull the two words from my chest,
The chill of death creeps in slowly, like frost crawling across my skin. It numbs everything; my fingers, my limbs, my thoughts. Until even the pain begins to fade. It's not relief. It's erasure. Like I’m being slowly unwritten from the world.
Cassie’s hands, warm and trembling, cup my face, her touch the only thing still tethering me to the living.
Her skin is soft, familiar, achingly real.
But even that warmth can’t hold back the cold that’s swallowing me whole.
It seeps through me, cruel and unstoppable, dragging me deeper into the dark.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I hear her. I feel her. And it wrecks me.
God, she shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have to watch this. I don’t deserve her grief, her desperation. I don’t deserve her love. But she’s giving it anyway, pouring everything she is into me like it might bring me back.
And for a moment, I want to believe it could.
“I haven’t got you anything,” she whispers through her sobs.
“You did,” I breathe out, “you stayed.”
“I’m not leaving you. Not now. Not ever. ”
Beneath the sorrow, something quieter starts to settle in me. Not fear. Not pain. Peace. A soft, aching stillness that tells me it’s okay to stop fighting. That whatever storm has been raging inside me… it’s done now.
I think about what we had—what this was between us. It was messy. Complicated. But it was real . It mattered. She mattered more than I ever let myself say. More than I ever let myself believe I could have.
And now, I have to let it go.
My vision blurs, her face the last thing I see. Her eyes, wide and full of everything I never deserved. My heart stutters, once. Twice.
Then I close my eyes.
And give in to the dark.
“ B lood loss… stable… monitoring…”
I hear the words.
They sound foreign. Speaking is pointless. Moving is worse. Every part of me aches.
Voices flit in and out. I try to focus, but the effort drains me. Eventually, I stop trying altogether.
I let go.
“ M erry Christmas, Axel.”
My name pulls me from the void.
The voice is softer, thinner than before. Sad.
A warm hand strokes my cheek, delicate and trembling .
I feel it, even if I can’t respond.
My body won’t move. But I feel every second of grief.
“ H appy New Year, Axel.”
The same sweet voice, each word laced with tears I know are there, yet I can’t see.
I want to reach for her, to wipe them away.
But I can’t.
A groan bubbles inside me, but it doesn’t come out.
The strain of slipping in and out of consciousness is unbearable.
Still, I can feel my strength returning, if only in flashes.
A n unfamiliar voice filters in. “He’s showing signs of brain activity, but he’s still unconscious.”
The accent is familiar, but my brain won’t place it.
Australian? South African? British?
Fuck if I know.
“When will he wake up?” That voice—I know it.
But where from?
“It’s hard to say. He lost a lot of blood.”
I feel like a prisoner in my own body, trapped behind a wall of flesh and bone, screaming silently for control. My limbs are heavy, useless. My chest rises and falls without my permission, shallow and unsteady. Every breath is a struggle, like I’m clawing my way out of quicksand.
My mind won’t let go. Not until it’s convinced I’m safe.
How fucking ironic, because safety feels like a distant fantasy, some far-off place I’ve never quite been allowed to reach. And here, in this blank space between worlds, there’s no time. No sound. No gravity. Just a vast, echoing stillness that threatens to swallow me whole.
But I fight. Somewhere deep down, I fight. I don’t know why—maybe for her.
Eventually, I win the battle against my eyelids. It feels like lifting a mountain just to peel them open. Light crashes into me, harsh and disorienting, stabbing at my eyes like tiny blades. I blink rapidly, vision swimming.
And then I see her.
Blonde hair clouds my vision, soft and golden in the morning light.
Silken strands spill over my arm, her thigh draped across mine, her presence anchoring me like a lighthouse in a storm.
Cassie’s curled beside me on the bed, her body half-sprawled but still instinctively protective, one hand wrapped tightly around mine like she never wants to let go.
She shifts slightly in her sleep, murmuring something I can’t quite catch. Her face is relaxed, lips parted just enough to reveal a sliver of vulnerability, a softness I never thought I’d see again. Even like this—disheveled, tear-streaked and half-asleep—she looks like an angel.
My angel.
Emotion rises like a wave in my throat, thick, sharp and overwhelming. I want to speak. To tell her I’m here. To thank her. Apologize. Beg her never to leave.
But before I can shape the words, before I can make a sound, the darkness pulls me under again. Fast. Relentless. Like it’s been waiting.
A tingling sensation starts in my fingertips. It’s subtle, almost like a phantom itch. At first, I think I’m imagining it, some cruel trick of a half-conscious mind. But then it spreads, crawling up my palm, pins and needles stabbing at my nerves that feel like they’ve been dead for days.
I focus everything on that hand. Nothing else exists. No pain, no fear, no time. Just that flicker of possibility.
Clench.
It’s weak. Barely more than a twitch. But I feel it; my muscles obeying command.
Open.
A tremble. The air brushes my skin. My breath catches.
Clench.
It works. I can move.
It feels like a fucking miracle.
Before the relief can fully settle, a voice cuts through the fog—deep, grounded, unmistakable.
“Axel?”
My heart jumps. I know that voice.
Trigger .
My eyes flutter open like they’ve been weighted down with stone. The light burns, and everything’s blurred at the edges, but I see the shape of him. Solid. Familiar. Safe.
I try to speak, but the sound that comes out is a low, broken groan. My throat feels shredded, like I’ve swallowed glass and chased it with fire. Nothing about my body feels right, but that voice… it anchors me.
Trigger moves closer, bending into view. He’s holding a cup in one hand, his other hand hovers like he doesn’t know whether to touch me or not, like he’s afraid I’ll shatter if he does.