Chapter 47 Halo
Chapter forty-seven
Halo
“We Never Made it Home”
We were out of time.
Out of luck.
Out of ammunition.
I could feel Eden behind me, trembling. Her breath came shallow and sharp like she couldn’t pull enough air into her lungs.
Maybe ten feet away, Matteo stood with seven of his men, guns leveled at us.
I didn’t need to do the math. I already knew how this ended.
I was a realist, and I knew there was no way we got out of this.
She gripped the back of my shirt with both hands, like if she held hard enough, none of it could happen. That maybe we could fold time, hide in the seconds we had left.
I half turned, pulling her in front of me so we could face each other.
I ran the backs of my swollen knuckles along her cheek.
She was so fucking beautiful. Even now, with dirt on her face and a split lip and terror in her eyes.
Especially now. The world didn’t deserve her, it had never deserved her.
I cupped her face.
“Hey,” I whispered.
Her wide eyes flicked up to mine, like she hadn’t really been looking at me before. I felt the heaviest weight settle in my chest, and I wasn’t sure I could stay on my feet anymore.
“This is going to be okay.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Her voice cracked, tears poured clean trails down her dirty face.
“I’m not.”
But I was. I was lying because I couldn’t stand to see her lose that spark of hope.
I pressed my forehead to hers, feeling the heat of her skin and the way her body shook. “I’m sorry that you’ve suffered at all… but this is going to be okay.”
“You’re worth it.”
I wanted to scream. I didn’t deserve that.
Not from her. I’d killed people with the same hands that held her.
I’d been soaked in blood since I was sixteen.
But she had always looked at me like I was worth so much more than all my transgressions.
Where I felt I needed to wash my sins away to be worthy of love, she got to her knees with me.
She didn’t understand; she thought I needed to be saved. But maybe I never wanted to be saved, maybe I just wanted someone willing to drown with me.
“I love you,” I breathed, voice breaking apart. “God, Eden, I love you.”
I wished I had told her that I loved her sooner, that it could have meant something longer. I hoped that she’d known it before now. I hoped that when she had said it to me, and I didn’t say it back that she knew that I was just afraid.
She clung to me tighter. “Halo—”
“I’m going to get us out of this,” I lied. I lied because she needed it. I lied because I needed it. “Give me a minute to talk to them.”
I wrapped my arms around her and pressed her head into my chest, holding her so tightly it almost hurt.
I kissed her temple. One last time. I felt her body relax into me, like she was melting into my skin.
I needed to feel her full of hope like she always had been.
I couldn’t let this world do to her exactly what I had always known it would.
I wouldn’t let her die in fear, or watch me take my last breath and have to deal with the agony of loss.
Then I looked up at Matteo.
He already knew that I had resigned to this.
I knew from the moment that he hadn’t filled us full of bullets that he was going to give me this moment.
I pulled her head into my shoulder more firmly, clutching her against me.
Then I ran my hand across the top of her matted hair.
I raised one finger, pointing to the back of her skull as she took comfort in the embrace. I nodded at Matteo.
He returned it, almost gently, like he understood the weight of what I was asking. Like even he wasn’t cruel enough to deny me this. I was rarely wrong about people, but maybe I had been wrong about Matteo.
She sighed against me, relaxed as I told her I loved her one more time. She had so much faith in me, even now. She trusted me.
The shot rang out.
Her body jerked then went still, slack in my arms.
I didn’t make a sound at first. I just held her. Arms locked around her like if I didn’t let go, she wouldn’t be gone. But she was. I felt it. I felt the exact second that light pulled right out of the world.
I fell to my knees now. She was still warm, and her blood soaked through my shirt. The scent of her shampoo clung to the air between us, and it felt so wrong because she wasn’t breathing anymore.
When I finally had it in me to look at her, I wished I hadn’t. Her lashes didn’t flutter, her lips didn’t part for breath.
Gone.
She was gone.
Something inside me snapped free, some cage of emotion that I’d kept locked for years.
I screamed until my throat bled. Rage. Grief.
Pain that ripped through every bone in my body.
I felt like my lungs had been torn from my chest, replaced with fire from the depths of hell that threatened to burn me from the inside out.
I had never felt pain before this. I realized nothing had ever hurt before this.
“Kill me now,” I begged, voice barely audible. “Do it. Please.”
Every minute without her was agony, I was happy to save her from this suffering, to shoulder that burden for just a moment… but I didn’t know how much more I could handle.
I looked up at them. My vision blurred. They lowered their guns.
“Don’t make me live with this. I can’t—” I broke off. “I can’t live in a world where she’s not in it.”
Matteo smiled, and I realized I hadn’t been wrong about him and his cruelty. As they turned and left, leaving me there with my entire world, my only reason for living, cradled in my arms and an empty gun at my side
And that was the cruelest thing they could’ve done.
I reached into my pocket and felt the cold metal I had carried there for as long as I could remember. That single round, the one that had always belonged to me. I’d always known there would come a day, a moment, and I’d know when it was time.
This was it.
I held her a little tighter, pressed my lips to her hair, and let the world go still. Then there was nothing. Just the unbearable, echoing silence of a world that she no longer existed in.