Chapter Seven Khai
Chapter Seven
Khai
The music is wrong.
It’s too loud, too distorted, pulsing through my skull instead of my chest. The bass rattles the floor beneath my boots, the lights slicing the darkness in violent flashes of blue and red. The club is packed, bodies everywhere, heat and sweat and movement, but none of it feels right.
Because she’s here.
Emmy.
She’s pressed against me, her body moving with mine, hands resting on my shoulders like they belong there. Like they’ve always belonged there. Her hair is loose tonight, spilling down her back in soft waves, catching the strobe lights as she tilts her head up to look at me.
Green eyes. Bright. Alive.
She smiles at me, breathless, unaware.
And that’s when the fear hits.
Not sharp. Not sudden.
Heavy.
Wrong.
My hands slide to her waist, instinctive, possessive, as if holding her tighter might anchor us both. I open my mouth to say something, move, get out, stay behind me, but the music swallows the words before they reach her.
The crowd shifts.
I feel it before I see it.
The air changes.
A pressure builds in my chest, familiar and horrifying, like standing on the edge of a cliff I’ve already fallen from once.
“Emmy,” I say, her name tearing out of me.
She laughs, leaning closer, her lips brushing my ear. “What?”
The sound cracks through me.
That’s when it happens.
A sharp crack splits the air.
Not loud enough to register as danger at first, just another sound swallowed by the music. I feel the impact through her body before I hear it again. A second shot. Then screaming. Then chaos.
Her body jerks in my arms.
Warmth splashes across my hands.
Red.
Too much red.
“No,” I gasp, looking down as her fingers claw weakly at my shirt, eyes wide with shock, confusion bleeding into terror. There’s a dark bloom spreading across her chest, soaking into black fabric, growing faster than I can stop it.
My knees hit the floor with her still in my arms.
Time fractures.
The music cuts out completely, replaced by a high-pitched ringing that drills straight through my skull. People are running, screaming, scattering in every direction, but all I can see is her.
Emmy.
Her breath stutters, shallow and wet. Blood coats my hands as I press down on the wound, harder, harder, like force alone can undo what’s already been done.
“Stay with me,” I snarl, the words rough and desperate. “Look at me. Don’t you dare look away.”
Her eyes flutter.
Fear grips my spine, cold and absolute.
This is wrong.
This isn’t how it goes.
“I’ve got you,” I lie, my voice breaking as panic claws up my throat. “I’ve got you, Little Heaven. I won’t let this take you. I won’t.”
Her lips part, trying to speak. Blood bubbles at the corner of her mouth.
My hands shake.
For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do.
Sirens wail somewhere in the distance, too far, too slow, and I realise with sick clarity that this is what helplessness feels like. This is what it means to watch something precious slip through your fingers while you’re powerless to stop it.
Her head lolls against my shoulder.
“No,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to hers. “No, no, no,”
Her eyes lose focus.
The world collapses.
I jolt awake with a violent gasp, lungs burning as if I’ve been underwater. My heart slams against my ribs, sweat soaking through the sheets, hands clenched so tight my fingers ache.
The room is still too dark. I sit up abruptly, breath uneven, sweat cooling on my skin as the last fragments of the nightmare peel away. No music. No blood. No her slipping through my hands.
Just the echo of it.
I reach for my phone immediately.
The screen flares to life, harsh in the darkness, and my pulse kicks as I unlock it. I scan for alerts, missed calls, messages, anything that shouldn’t be there.
Nothing. Her name sits pinned at the top of my messages.
Little Heaven.
I don’t open it.
Instead, I swipe to the security app.
The system loads instantly, the one I had installed the night after the car-park incident, while she slept unaware that men had already been watching the entrances to her building.
Cameras upgraded. Access points monitored.
Quiet. Legal enough to pass inspection. Invisible to anyone not looking for it.
I told myself it was temporary.
The blue dot appears.
Second floor. Apartment nine.
Stationary.
Alive.
The breath I let out is slow, controlled, like easing pressure off a trigger.
Good.
I tap through the feeds. Exterior first, the street outside her building sits empty beneath a flickering streetlight. No unfamiliar vehicles. No loitering figures. The view shifts smoothly to the entryway, then the stairwell, then the corridor outside her door.
Still.
Clear.
I lean back against the headboard, phone clenched in my hand as the image from the dream tries to claw its way back, her body jerking, blood spreading, my hands useless.
Never again.
I open a secure message thread.
Khai
Keep eyes on apartment nine tonight. Two men. Rotate every four hours. Same rules.
Read receipts flash almost instantly.
Acknowledged.
Already in position.
Of course they are.
She won’t see them. Won’t hear them. Won’t know that every entrance, every blind spot, every shadowed corner has been accounted for.
That’s the point.
My phone vibrates once.
Jaxon
You awake?
Khai
Yeah.
A pause.
Jaxon
You want backup close?
I glance back at the screen, at the steady pulse of her location.
Not yet.
Khai
I’ve got coverage. Stay available.
Jaxon
Copy.
I open Emmy’s messages now, my thumb hovering over the last thing she sent.
I’m not yours.
My jaw tightens.
I don’t text her. Not now. Not when she’s asleep.
I check the feed one last time.
Still there.
Safe.
For now.
I stand and move to the window, city lights stretching out below, cold and indifferent.
The nightmare wasn’t about my death.
It was about losing control.
“I won’t let that happen,” I murmur into the dark.
This time, it isn’t a promise. It’s already in motion.