Blaze (Virtues & Lies 3)

“You will not beg, because I will show no mercy. You will not cry, because I will not grant you pity.”

Pulling the knife out, I drop it to the ground with the icy shock of pain that flashes through my head.

My heart doesn’t stutter or stumble. It races wildly as bile sputters from my lips. Everything darkens and falls away. It’s all so hazy. My head is so sore, and everything is spinning. So fast. So dark…

“Fleur. Fleur! Fleur!”

Chapter 50

CASPER

“I need a fucking ambulance now!” I shout at Arabella as her hands shake violently, trying to grapple with my phone.

Our gazes catch, and her eyes are swimming, glistening like the surface of still water. Yet, her expression is a hurricane of worry and pain.

All I can do is take in all the blood. It’s never bothered me before. It’s never been hers before.

I’m not too sure what I do or what I say. What I don’t do. What I don’t say. But the inferno in my chest roars as I sweep my girl into my arms.

There’s no time. No fucking time to waste. I can’t not do something.

“It’s going to be okay, Trouble,” I keep murmuring as I take her out to the car as fast as I can without jostling her too much.

“You could be hurting her.” Arabella is chasing after me, too much sense pouring from her.

“She’s already fucking hurt!”

“Stop! What’re you doing?”

“Taking her to help.”

Freddie abandons his frantic call to Christopher as he looks over Cameron’s body the minute he sees us. He rushes ahead of us, leaving Ryan to dea

l with the mess. It was his day off—it’s why Cameron was on his own. Why he’s dead.

He has a five-year-old son. A boy that will never see his father again.

I swallow down the guilt that threatens to overcome me as I step over his killer.

Ryan’s gaze clashes with mine, and he feels it too. His heart is in his throat as mine is choking me. There’s a polluted ravine between us, but it doesn’t stop either of us from feeling the devastation.

Freddie opens the door, running forward to get the Range running while Arabella opens the back door for me before getting into the front passenger seat.

“Call Francis,” he tells her as he revs the engine to life.

My hands have always been steady, but not today. Not right now. My world is tittering, precariously close to crashing from its axis. My universe is threatening to implode. And my hands fumble and tremble as I try to check Fleur’s pulse. It takes me too fucking long. So long that for a moment the worst cuts through me.

“You don’t get to fucking quit on me now,” I tell her between my desperate breaths.

The faint thrumming flutters beneath my fingers, and with it, mine, ramps up a beat or two. Shallow breaths warm my fingers as I pick at the dried blood around her nose.

Trouble never gives up. Trouble doesn’t quit. It’s defiant.

Closed eyes flutter.

“Ara-Arabella…” A low cough sputters from her lips, and blood spatters into my hand, small beads tracking down my wrist. “Arabella.”

“I’m here. I’m fine,” Arabella tells her, her hand reaching back and taking Fleur’s.