40. Kellan
KELLAN
Darkness comes before peace or before sleep.
There’s no white light, no flashes of my life.
There’s just absence, like the world took a step back, and then I feel pain.
It’s slicing, smacking me out of my dull haze.
It explodes behind my ribs. My side is on fire, my skin is wet and warm, and then the smell hits me next. Blood, sweat, and iron.
I try breathing and regret it instantly as my chest seizes, and I choke on spit.
I open my eyes to blinding light and blurred shapes above me. A voice cuts through the noise, sharp and panicked. “Kellan? Kellan, keep your eyes open. Stay with me, please. Don’t fucking do this.”
Caroline’s voice drags me back from hell, though it’s hard to say if it’s better here, the pain is so intense. I turn toward the sound, groaning at the hot pain clawing in my torso like something alive.
Caroline is over me, tendrils of her hair in my face, tickling my neck. Her eyes are wide, wild with terror. Her face is streaked with blood and makeup and tears, and her mouth trembles.
“You’re awake,” she gasps. “Kellan. Oh my God.”
“Hi,” I rasp. It’s all I can do. I don’t have many syllables left in me.
She lets out a sob and leans over me, her forehead pressing to mine. Her whole body shakes. “I thought you stopped breathing,” she chokes out. “Or maybe you did. You did stop?—”
“Just for a minute,” I whisper. “Wanted a break.”
“Don’t joke.”
“Bad timing?”
Her laugh is sharp and wet and breaks halfway through. “You’re such an asshole.”
I smile faintly. “Takes one to love one,” I say, letting her know I heard her earlier.
I heard her say she loved me. I already knew it, but it was nice to hear, even if it’s shaky.
I don’t know where we stand. I have a feeling she doesn’t just love me.
Really, I know it’s more than me. But I’m willing to share her.
“Shut up,” she whispers, and her hand tightens around mine. “Just shut up and stay here.”
There’s movement all around us—boots on tile, chairs overturned, shouted instructions. I catch glimpses. Declan crouched by the wall, blood on his sleeves. Rian pacing like a caged wolf, his phone pressed to his ear.
And across the room, the still shape of a body.
Our father. Athair.
Gone.
The memory crashes down like a hammer. The gunfire, the jolt in my side, the stunned look on Declan’s face as I fell. The world spinning, tilting, then blackness.
“He shot me,” I say hoarsely. “He really did it.”
Caroline nods, face twisted. “He didn’t even hesitate.”
“Why would he? I was just another pawn.”
“He was punishing me by hurting you,” she says gently, stroking my face with her fingers. My skin lights up where she touches me, and I reach for her. I swipe her waist with my hand, even thought it takes all of my effort.
She closes her eyes like the words gut her. “I never thought he’d?—”
“I did. I knew he would. He’s a monster. He’s always been a monster.”
“I killed him,” she says suddenly. Her voice is hollow and shaky.
“I picked up the gun, and I saw him going for Rian, and I just did it. I just pulled the trigger. Guess that makes me one of you now.” She killed him for Rian.
Not for me. For Rian. She started with him, and now it’s because of him she’s with us. A pang of jealousy surges through me.
“Good.” I say it flatly, because it is.
She nods into my shoulder. “He deserved it. I don’t regret it. But it doesn’t feel like enough. Not after everything he took from you.”
“Doesn’t have to feel like anything. You pulled the trigger. That’s what matters.”
“I don’t care about that,” she whispers. “I just want you to be okay.”
“We can use it. Tell the Valacchis you killed him to avenge Tino.”
“I don’t care about?—”
“Listen, no, this is good.”
“Kellan, all I want is for you to be?—”
“Listen!” I snap, and the effort of raising my voice shoots through my torso.
I grab at it with my hand again, and Caroline tucks her lips into her mouth, silencing herself.
“Your life depends on a story, Caroline. We did all this to keep you alive, so you’d better fucking listen.
This can buy you protection if you frame it as loyalty to the family. They won’t retaliate.”
“I don’t give a shit about the Valacchis!
” she explodes. “I don’t care about the story, or the spin, or the fucking strategy!
” Her hands tremble harder, and now she’s crying again—this time not from fear but fury.
“I care about you. I care that you’re lying in a pool of your own blood while everyone talks like it’s just another day at the goddamn office. ”
She drops her head to my shoulder, her tears hot against my neck.
“I thought you were gone,” she whispers.
“You were so still. And I just…my brain stopped working. I couldn’t breathe.
It was like all my worst fears. I never really thought anyone would die.
I couldn’t live with myself if I was why—” Her voice cracks, and she looks away, wiping tears from her face.
“Stop,” I whisper, “I’m still here. Annoyingly so.” I touch her hair, the only part I can touch of her without lifting.
“You keep talking like that, I’m gonna finish what he started.”
“I love your threats.”
She laughs again, but it comes out more like a sob. Her hand slides into mine again, blood still slick between our fingers. “Are you guys going to help me? This really fucking hurts.” Panic starts to rise again as I feel the fire tearing through my abdomen.
“I know. I know it does. The driver is coming. It hasn’t been that long.”
“It feels like I’ve already gone to hell and come back.”
“You would never go to hell,” she says lifting her head. “You’re too good.”
“Caroline,” I whisper, “if you want to love someone like me, you have to admit to yourself that I’m not good.”
“No, I don’t,” she whispers back, petting my hair and kissing my temple, then forehead, then cheek. Everywhere.
Her touch is desperate, trembling. I want to lift my arm and hold her, but I don’t think I can move it. “Your voice brought me back from wherever I was going,” I tell her.
Footsteps again. Declan kneels beside me, shoving gauze and medical tape into a black bag. “Doc’s a minute out,” he says. His face is grim, smeared with blood. His own or mine, I can’t tell.
“Not a driver?” I ask hoarsely.
“You’re losing too much,” he mutters, pressing gauze to my ribs. “We need a transfusion, and fast.”
“He’s going to make it,” Caroline snaps. “He’s going to.”
Declan meets her eyes. “Caroline,” he says gently.
“Don’t do that. He is.”
He pulls her against his chest into a hug, and she relaxes into his touch. She relaxes into his touch, and the jealousy alone keeps me alive for another moment.
“Is he?” I murmur, closing my eyes against the bright lights and loud sounds.
Caroline leans over me again. “Don’t fall asleep.”
“I’m not. Just closing my eyes.”
“To what, recharge your soul?”
“Exactly.”
“Open them,” she commands.
I do.
“I love you,” she says again.
I blink. “That’s twice now.”
“If you heard me, why didn’t you say it back?”
“I was bleeding out.”
“Say it back.”
“I’m still bleeding out.”
“Kellan Crowley.”
“ Taim i ngrá leat freisin ,” I whisper. “I always have.”
Her face breaks into something fragile and whole. She kisses my forehead again, then stays there, curled around me like armor.
The door swings open. A woman in scrubs and a black jacket rushes in with a trauma bag and gloves. Declan helps clear the way.
“Vitals?” she asks.
“Low,” Rian replies. “Very. Bullet wound, left side.”
“Hold him down,” she says. “We need to stabilize before we move him.”
Caroline stays with me, hand still in mine, pressing her cheek to mine as the medic works. I groan at the sting of saline and the fresh tape binding my side.
“You’re safe now,” she whispers. “You hear me? You’re safe.”
I believe her. I believe that her love alone could keep me safe.