129. Trace
Trace
T he second she went down, I felt it.
Like the world shifted sideways.
Like the ground gave out beneath me.
Like the bond tore itself loose from my chest.
“Scarlett!” I screamed, voice raw, lungs burning.
I ran through smoke and blood and gunfire, pushing bodies aside, Zeke shouting behind me. Kane’s gunfire echoed sharp. Rhett dragging Sloane to cover.
Smoke blurred the trees. Gunfire cracked like thunder.
Alden was already there—on his knees beside her, hands shaking as he pressed down on the wound, frantic.
“There’s too much blood,” he muttered. “Fuck—there’s too much—”
I dropped beside her, knees hitting the earth. My hands reached for hers.
Cold.
Too cold.
“Scar,” I whispered. “Stay with me, Sunshine.”
Her eyes fluttered, lashes wet with blood and ash.
“I didn’t want to go like this,” she whispered.
“No,” I said. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Then it hit again.
The bond. Fuck.
A sharp pulse in my chest.
Then another—fainter, fracturing.
Like something was being ripped out by the root.
Alden looked at me, panicked. “Trace—do you feel that?”
“Yeah,” I choked. “She’s slipping.”
“Hold her. “Don’t let her go.”
“I won’t.”
Zeke dropped beside us, pressing gauze hard to the wound. “We need evac now. She won’t make it like this.”
“She’s not fucking leaving.” I growled.
Rhett dropped into cover beside us, breathless. “We’ve got thirty seconds tops. We move or we die. If we’re gonna move her, we move now.”
Scarlett’s eyes opened again—barely.
And in that shattered second, she looked at us—me and Alden.
Blood on her lips. Her voice barely a breath.
“I love you.”
And then her eyes closed.
The bond pulsed—once.
Then it unraveled.
Gone.