Chapter 54
fifty-four
I always joked that I would die alone.
That was always an inescapable fact of my existence. Something I took as a given.
I knew it, but experiencing it is… different.
I got shot. I’m dying. And I am alone.
But the dying part doesn’t hurt the way I expected it to.
I mean, it hurts. It does. The place where the bullet hit me feels like… well, like a bullet hit me. A hot, stinging, piercing pain, right in my chest.
My vision goes out, but I can feel things. Cold, mostly. The sort that slowly creeps over damp skin.
Oh. Blood. My bullet hole is bleeding and cooling.
My whole body seems colder, actually. I wonder why, trying to distract myself from the physical pain as much as the mind-melting misery of everything Pierce said before he shot me.
Part of me wants to believe he was lying.
After all, the guy did, you know, kill me. He clearly isn’t a loyal employee. And I’m sure if he has no qualms about murder, a little dishonesty wouldn’t deter him.
But I can’t think. And my fake relationship is less of a concern than bleeding out.
Still, as everything fades into darkness, I imagine Marco’s face.
That’s a whole different sort of pain. I’ll never get to kiss him again. Or wake up next to him. Or see the way he hangs on my every word, even when I struggle to get them out.
The way he pretends to hang on my every word, maybe.
If I weren’t already dying, I think the hurt seeping into my soul might kill me.
Luckily, though, I am dying. That explains why I feel so cold—I am bleeding out.
Right in the middle of… wherever I am. Somewhere… hard? The surface under me is definitely hard. Apart from that, I can’t wrap my mind around much aside from the soup of awful sensations swamping my body.
Yes. Thank God I am dying.
My heart can’t break if it isn’t beating.