38. Beck
BECK
JONAH KAGEN – GOD NEEDS THE DEVIL
“Van!” I roared, my lungs refusing to breathe unless hers were. “Do something!”
He spiralled for two full, agonising seconds, then launched into a round of CPR.
After thirty compressions—I counted every single one without breathing—he whipped out a tiny device from his medpack, stuck two electrodes in two different locations on her scantily clad chest, yelled at us to get back, then pushed the only button on said device.
Addie’s body jolted in far too lifeless and disturbing a way—but then Van checked for a pulse again.
If Henry Lewis wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself. Fuck the Academy. Fuck Varco and his tests. The only things I cared about were in this room with a bunch of dead assholes—and one of those things was close to dead herself.
“She’s got a pulse!” Van cried, tears lining the rims of his pale blue eyes.
Dek clenched her right hand in both of his—so tiny and pale in comparison—unabashedly sobbing over her with a mixture of grief and relief. He wiped his face on his shoulder, meeting my gaze over her too-still body.
I looked between Evander, Deklan, and Adelaide, and realised three things.
One: that we were all in love with her. Not infatuated, not intrigued, but fully and undeniably in love.
Two: that none of us would be willing to give her up for the sake of our brothers—and that none of us would ask it of each other.
Three: that life going forward would look very different if she could accept those facts.
She just had to wake up first.
She had to live—or we wouldn’t be able to.