my heart was breaking over and over again. As I watched him, each jagged piece splintered into tinier pieces until I felt like there was nothing left in my chest but sand.
"I know who did it," he breathed feebly.
Tears fell from my cheeks in a steady stream, washing Bo's face clean, one drop at a time. With trembling fingers, I lifted my hand to wipe at his mouth and chin, tenderly ridding it of all evidence of the price he'd paid for knowledge, for revenge, for justice.
"Tell Lucius 'Heather'," he wheezed, gasping for enough air to fill his deteriorating lungs.
I felt the sob bubble up in my throat before it erupted, spilling out in one syllable. "Bo," I cried.
Though he was obviously fighting for his breath, he inhaled as deeply as he could and spoke.
"I've never loved anyone more."
I squeezed my eyes shut, praying that this was all a dream, that when I opened them again, I'd be in my bedroom and Bo would be beside me. Alive.
"Bo, please," I wept.
"Thank you," he panted.
My eyes opened at the touch of his cool fingers to my lips and then his arm fell back to his chest with a hollow thud.
"Bo!" I shook his shoulder, but he didn't move. "Bo!" I tapped my fingers against his cheek, but still got no response.
I looked into his face, the face that had haunted my dreams, the face that was etched onto my heart. I searched his dark eyes, but they were empty. They stared blankly past me, looking into a world that I couldn't see.
"Bo, don't go," I cried. "Please don't leave me."
As I watched, his form began to fade. As his body's last efforts to fight metabolized the remainder of the blood, I lost sight of him. Though I could still feel the ever-cooling shape beneath my hands, I could no longer see Bo. He disappeared right before my eyes.
"Bo!" I wailed, the last bits of my heart exploding in a spray of emotional shrapnel that left me dead and lifeless inside.
The crunch of metal drew my attention away from Bo and I remembered that my friends were stranded down the road, at the mercy of Trinity. But I didn't want to leave Bo. Not yet. I couldn't bear to let him go.
More noises reached my ears, the sounds of struggling, scuffling. What if there was still time to help them? How could I not at least try?
Guilt, sharp and poignant, seared my soul. I was so torn. I wanted nothing more to stay with Bo, but deep down, I knew that the only right thing to do was to help the living. They still had a chance for happiness, even if I did not.
I leapt to my feet and ran as fast as my stiff muscles would carry me. As I reached the car, I saw that the doors had been ripped off, the windshield was broken and the hood was up, the radiator steaming and hissing in the dying glow of the headlights.
I heard a faint rustling and I saw a flash of red in the forest. I raced forward to Savannah. She was jerking spasmodically where she lay at the base of a tree. There was a dark stain on the bark, blood that ran down to where she was crumpled on the ground. The right side of her face was covered in it and her hair was wet with it.
"Savannah?"
There was no response; she just continued to twitch. She was making a gurgling sound in the back of her throat that made me nauseous. Whatever Trinity had done to her, I knew Savannah was in trouble.
Pulling my cell phone from my pocket, I dialed 911. When I'd reported the accident to the operator and hung up, I cradled Savannah's head in my lap and listened for sounds of Trinity or Devon. After a few minutes, when still I had not heard the sounds of other people, I realized that I was alone in the night. It was absolutely silent but for the suffering of Savannah and the tick of the car's engine where it was slowly dying on the road behind me.
********
Three numb days later, I lay in my bed, reliving the nightmare of the previous seventy-some hours.
After the ambulances had come and