Chapter 34 Vaughn
VAUGHN
FOUR YEARS AGO
Iran away from home.
I know. Me? Running away from home? It’s a blasphemy I never expected to take part in.
And yet that’s exactly what I did.
Mostly because I doubted my parents would ever let me leave their sight after everything that happened at the camp.
I wasn’t hurt, not really—just a few lacerations from when I slid down a hill with Yulian unconscious on my shoulder yesterday morning. At the time, the pain didn’t register. The need to get him out alive burned through everything, numbing me to the rest.
All my focus narrowed to a single purpose—getting him to safety.
And I did.
After what felt like an endless trek down the mountain, my father’s men finally found us—they’d been searching all night. Not long after, Yulian’s people arrived and took his limp body from my arms.
I was trembling, though not from exhaustion, lack of sleep, or even the crushing stress. It was something deeper, rawer, and had everything to do with the guy in my arms.
When they tried to pull him away, I clung to him tighter, letting go only because he needed help. My fingers grazed his cold ones, and I felt the same wild urge I’d had last night in the cave—to warm him, to keep him alive.
With my body wrapped around his and his frame cocooned in my embrace.
But he was gone in an instant, and I refuse to let that be the last time I see him.
For the first time, I feel like a real teenager—defying my parents’ orders to stay home and impulsively running off to Chicago. I’ve never even been to Chicago, and it took a fake ID just to get on the plane.
The escape from home was messy. Lidya said she’ll cover for me and that she has my back, but despite her enthusiasm, there’s only so much she can do once my parents realize I’m gone.
I’ll think about the consequences later. The most important thing is that I made it.
My fingers are clammy around the bullet that I’ve been holding in my fist during the whole trip. It’s probably weird that I kept the bullet I removed from inside Yulian, but it gave me peace of mind, in a sense. It reminded me that I saved him, that he’s alive.
The bullet drags me back to the cave every time I touch it. The cold, the fear, the edge of death—but also him. Us. We had each other through it all.
It reminds me he took a bullet for me, and the least I can do is make sure he’s recovering well.
That’s what I told myself, the excuse I clung to when I gave in to the pull and came to Chicago.
As expected, hospital security is ironclad.
No surprise given Yulian’s father’s status.
I slip into the staff changing room, and pull on a doctor’s coat, mask, and glasses to disguise myself.
My build and height help, but appearance isn’t everything.
It’s the walk and the way I carry myself, and I keep my head high as I stride toward Yulian’s room.
Some guards stationed in front of the door watch me, but I continue putting on the facade as I slip into the room and close the door behind me.
I release a sigh, but it catches in the back of my throat when my eyes zero in on Yulian.
The hospital room is dim, wrapped in a sterile hush broken only by the steady pulse of the heart monitor as shadows from the blinds cut across the floor. I don’t know what I expected—maybe Yulian awake, cracking jokes, swathed in bandages. Blood, wires, life. Instead, he’s just…still.
It’s unlike him.
That’s why I was screaming at him to wake up when morning came and he was motionless, breathing with effort.
My heart cracked in my chest when he wouldn’t open his eyes.
That’s why I carried him on my shoulder and took the dangerous trip down.
I contemplated leaving him in the cave as I went to scout around, but his pulse was weak, and I just had to take him with me.
Risky, yes, and we could’ve both died if the attackers were still lurking around, but I had no other choice.
And to see him like this now sends a thump in my chest.
The charts at the foot of the bed show records from two days prior. He hasn’t woken up yet, but the notes say his vitals are stable and he should gain consciousness any time now.
I remove the mask as I approach him, my heartbeat thumping louder with every step I take.
Yulian lies motionless, swallowed by white sheets, his skin nearly blending into them—more pale than I’ve ever seen him.
The color’s gone from his lips, and a fresh bruise blooms across one cheek, half hidden by the chaos of dark hair spilled over the pillow.
His lashes are long, feathery, casting soft shadows onto sharp cheekbones.
Even now, he looks…pretty. Not like a girl.
Not delicate. Just…lethally striking in a strange way that knots something deep in my stomach.
My knees bend of their own accord, landing me at his side. The bed dips beneath my weight, and every inch of me sparks to life.
I sit there for a moment, trying to understand why my throat feels tight. This should feel like visiting a classmate or a friend, but it’s more…intense.
Confusing.
More akin to a penance.
His thick, long fingers lie limp on the bed.
I stare at them.
For one second, ten, twenty…
I stare long enough that the silence starts to claw at my ribs.
Then I reach out.
I don’t know why I do it. I don’t even realize I’m doing it until my fingers brush his—slowly, uncertainly—before closing around his hand.
He’s warm.
That’s the first thing that startles me. The warmth. The proof that his fingers aren’t cold anymore, and he’s alive.
But then the second thing hits me.
I don’t want to let go.
The realization crashes through me like a sucker punch to the ribs. My breath shudders and a tingle rushes down my spine.
I tighten my grip instinctively, and something sharp coils in my gut, expanding through my chest and flowing into my blood.
What the hell are these emotions?
I’m not supposed to feel this. Like I’m about to burst out of my skin just at the sensation of his hand in mine.
No. This isn’t right.
Especially not with him.
My heart’s hammering, though, too loud in the quiet, and completely uncaring about my logical thoughts.
I try to pull my hand back, but it won’t obey. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m scared to let him go or because something in me has already decided I can’t.
I won’t.
So I sit there as the monitor beeps, holding his hand like a coward, hoping he doesn’t wake up, terrified he might.
“What the hell have you done to me, Yulian?” I whisper, squeezing his hand tighter.
That’s when I realize my lips are tingling. Not in an abstract, nervous way, no. It’s a real, physical sense that makes my skin tingle and burn all at once.
A flood of memories bulldozes through me despite my resolve to bury it all.
The cave.
The silence.
The trembling breaths.
His mouth on mine.
I was about to fall asleep after wrapping my arms around him to stay warm like he said. I experienced a sort of discomfort as I did it, feeling his muscles beneath mine and being flooded by his scent.
Now that I’m holding his hand, I realize that wasn’t discomfort but something more.
A curse.
A hunger.
A need for something.
In the cave, however, I tried to quiet those thoughts as I drifted off, but I was wide awake the second I felt the press of lips against mine.
I still remember it all. The brush of skin against skin.
The shattering breaths.
The heat.
The hesitation.
The kiss was so soft, I thought I’d imagined it, but the thud in my chest had been so violent, I was sure he could feel it reverberate through me and crash against his back. I didn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to react, or, worse, what face to wear.
But now…
Now, I’m staring at his mouth.
At the faint swell of his bottom lip and the softness, despite losing some color.
My own lips part without permission. My throat’s gone dry, and yet my tongue feels thick and heavy, the air cloying in my lungs.
What am I doing?
This isn’t the same kind of desire I’ve felt before, and it’s scaring the shit out of me.
I’m straight. I’ve never looked at a guy and felt like…this. On edge, slightly nervous, crippled with fear and desire and recklessness.
Not to mention, I’ve only ever kissed and fooled around with girls, and so has he, considering all our sex and virginity talk that I, for some reason, disliked.
I didn’t particularly enjoy listening to him recount his sexcapades, which is odd because I listen to Niko and the others talk about that all the time.
His hand in mine is obviously not a girl’s, thicker and masculine with protruding veins on the back, and yet it feels like the warmest, most beautiful hand I’ve ever held.
Not sure if it’s because our hands are about the same size, or that I appreciate the feel of hard ridges, but I definitely like it a lot more than anyone else’s.
And I shouldn’t.
I think of Danika—her soft voice and pretty smile. But any flutter of emotion I feel toward her pales in comparison to the goddamn tornado roaring through me now.
It’s not logical or safe.
But it’s undeniably real.
And I want to test something, to know whether that thud in my chest when he kissed me was a fluke.
I lean forward, terrified and impulsive in equal measure, and brush my mouth over his.
One second.
Two.
No thud this time. No. Because everything just stops.
But it’s merely the calm before the storm.
Soon after, an explosion starts at the center of my chest, sharp and consuming and wrong but so right that I never want it to end.
My entire body reacts to the mere touch of our lips. My stomach flips, my chest tightens, and my heart—fuck, my heart nearly dislodges itself trying to reach him. Every nerve sparks. My mouth waters for more.
More.
More.
It’s only his mouth. Only a kiss, but it doesn’t feel like it. No.
I’ve kissed before, but it’s never been soul-crushing like this—and he’s not even kissing me back.
This kiss is different. It feels like everything I’ve ever wanted yet never allowed myself to want.