into my life like this. Never should’ve fallen for him at all.
If anything, this felt like a sign—a sign that getting involved with Mal this way had been a mistake. Everyone who I loved deeply, romantically with my whole heart, was taken from me. Violently and before their time. When—if—he survived this, I knew I couldn’t keep going the way we had been. I couldn’t risk getting closer to Mal. Couldn’t risk suffering that pain again.
In the distance, sirens wailed.
In my arms, Mal went limp.
“No,” I demanded brokenly, tugging him closer as my heart shattered. “Hang on, Mal. Just hang on.”
23
Mal
Pain.
The pain dragged me out of unconsciousness first, throbbing, dull pain starting in my shoulder and radiating out to the rest of my body. I groaned, shifting restlessly on the mattress beneath me, unable to get comfortable.
Then I felt a hand on my ankle, encouraging me to stay still. Other sensations began to filter in, even though I kept my eyes closed: lights above me, low voices talking, the rhythmic beep-beep-beep of a monitor, the acrid smell of sterilizer.
“Hey, Dad,” Dante said quietly.
With some effort, I opened my eyes. Dante was seated near the foot of the hospital bed with his hand resting gently on my ankle over the blanket. Heath stood behind him, concern on his face, his hand on Dante’s shoulder. Blade was present, too, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, and Priest sat in an armchair in the corner, his mouth set in a hard line, heavy bags under his eyes. He looked about as bad as I felt. And I felt really fucking bad.
I tried to meet his eyes, and Priest looked away.
What the fuck was going on? Anxiety rose in my chest, making my muscles tighten, which made the throbbing pain in my shoulder worsen. I winced again and tried to take a deep breath, but that hurt, too. I couldn’t remember what had happened—why I was in the hospital—but Priest’s reaction scared me even more. He never looked like this: closed off and distant.
My heart pounded in my chest.
Wasn’t he worried? Didn’t he care?
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, turning my attention back to Dante. “What happened?”
“You were shot, Dad,” Dante said. “You remember?”
It all came back in a rush. I remembered then, standing in the graveyard by Ankh’s headstone. I’d gone there alone, to get some air and hopefully, with Ankh’s help, figure out what I should do about my feelings for Priest. And then Priest had, to my shock, shown up. He’d known exactly where I’d run off to. Something about that had made it obvious to me that I needed to take the leap. To confess to him, damn the fear.
And then the white-hot pain had exploded across my back.
After that it was a blur—I remembered leaning heavily against Priest, trying to focus on the sound of his voice as I grew dizzier and dizzier, and dark spots danced in my vision. The last thing I remembered was Priest telling me to hang on—and then darkness.
“Yeah,” I said shakily. “Yeah, I remember. It was Xavier, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” Dante said.
“Where is he?” I asked, anxiety ratcheting up again. “Is he still out there?”
“Fuck,” I said, relaxing a little into the mattress. “What about—”
“Self-defense,” Dante said. “Multiple witnesses. Clear violation of the restraining order. It’s fine.”
I tried to meet Priest’s eyes again, but he still wouldn’t look at me. “Fuck,” I said again. “So what the fuck happened to me?”
“The doctor said the bullet missed your heart by millimeters,” Blade said. “You’re lucky. Really fucking lucky.”
“Took six hours of surgery,” Heath said, looking pale.
“You lost a lot of blood,” Dante added. “Recovery’s not going to be easy.”
“Shit,” I said. No wonder I was so exhausted—six hours of surgery. I remembered, vaguely, the feeling of Priest’s hand on my back. What if he hadn’t been there to staunch the bleeding? What if Xavier had found me before Priest had?
Blade stepped a little closer.
“The cops were closing in on Xavier,” he explained. “The DNA they’d managed to scrape up had finally come back a match, and there was a warrant out for his arrest for violation of the restraining order. Apparently that, combined with the knowledge that you and Priest were… spending time together, pushed him over the edge. From what we