“What?” Jane chokes out, unburying herself from my chest.
Tony. I yell at the top of my lungs, “SHE HAS THE CAT!”
He doesn’t hear and he disappears into the fucking fire. Alarm triggers a reaction in me. I touch my collar for a mic. I’m shirtless. And no one grabbed a radio. There was no time.
I have one last instinct that tries to shove me forward.
Get him.
I let the reflex take over me, and I touch the top of her head, lovingly, and I run back to the house. My strong pulse beats in my ears.
“NO!” Banks screams.
“You can’t,” she cries out.
If my life means anything, let it mean this: I tried with my whole soul to protect the ones who couldn’t protect themselves, and I loved while I was here.
I will always love my brother.
And Jane—I will always, always love Jane. Death can’t take that from me.
45
BANKS MORETTI
I run after my twin—he enters a literal burning building like he’s immune to the flames. That’s my brother. Six-minutes older. Entering hellfire with vigilance and confidence that’d make his men feel safe.
I follow. To stop him. Lungs fucking ablaze.
I don’t even reach the curb before Akara tackles me.
My chest and knees thud to the hot cement. No, no—fucking no! “Get off!” I scream between gritted teeth, and I thrash against Akara. “Get the fuck off me!” Someone stop my brother. My chin digs into pavement, eyes wide-open. Super-glued to this misery.
Fire lights up the night sky, smoke mushrooming above us, and flames burst through every window on every level of that stupid fucking house.
I scream out the anger and pain and ruthless agony. I thrash and fucking thrash. Snot runs out of my nose.
My pulse is ripped out of my veins.
Akara has a knee on my spine—Donnelly and Farrow are also pinning me down. Three of them restrain me. To save me because my brother is gone.
Thatcher and I—we were never allowed in the same platoon. Because of a military rule about brothers.
They don’t put them together in the unfortunate event that one dies. It ensures that the other will survive. So a parent won’t lose two sons at the same time.
I never understood that.
Call me a dumbass, a stunad. But to survive my twin brother’s death is worse than being six-feet under.
I fight them. It’s all I have.
“You can’t go in there!” Akara yells in my ear.
“He’s gonna die for Tony,” I choke and spit out into the pavement. But I know Thatcher.
He’d die for just about anyone.
I hear Jane behind me, crying in anguish that already slashes up my body.
“Close your eyes, Banks,” Akara orders, his voice almost cracking.
I’m watching the house burn down with my twin inside. I can’t feel the flames tearing at his skin—I just feel the pain of losing someone who’s a part of my soul.
“Just kill me,” I choke.
Akara covers my eyes with his hand.
And everything goes black.
46
JANE COBALT
“I can’t…” I can’t breathe. I kneel on the street, our cats—I think Quinn and Luna took them to a car or neighboring house.
I can’t…
I just…
Thatcher is gone. Our house is in flames. In a matter of minutes.
“Breathe, Janie.” Moffy holds me from behind. His arms wrapped around me, and I clutch his biceps for dear life. I feel like I’m falling and falling into an endless abyss and I can’t reach the surface. Suffocating and suffocating.
We were going to marry.
He’d be my husband, and I’d be his wife.
Breath is strangled in my windpipe. “Thatcher,” I choke.
Maximoff hugs me, telling me he’s here. Tears flow like broken dams down my face, and my eyes burn from worse than smoke.
I barely notice the fire truck arrive. Firefighters roll out hoses to contain the blaze—and right as they approach the townhouse, the roof collapses.
I can’t even hear my own blood-curdling wail.
Maximoff picks me up. He carries me further away from the fire, but the pain follows, attached to me like a parasite. I bury my face in his shoulder, and when we’re behind a parked SUV, I vomit.
Gravel digging in my knees, I puke until nothing else comes out, dry heaving, and Moffy tries to help me stop. I dazedly touch the shirt on my body. Baggy, a men’s crewneck.
I’m wearing his shirt. And his dog tags.
I fall back into Moffy. He catches me, and I curl up into a ball.
“I love him,” I cry. “I love him…I love him.”
My biggest regret is not saying it enough.
47
JANE COBALT
It feels like eternity that he’s gone.
I can’t count the seconds, the minutes. Every passing moment extends into utter oblivion, and I calm behind the SUV.
Enough to stare blankly at the road, numb and hollowed.
“Janie!” Maximoff pulls me to my feet.
“What…?” I follow his gaze to the collapsed, burning townhouse. As firefighters hose down the battered structure, the garage door slowly begins to open.
Is it…?
Thatcher emerges with an unconscious Tony. He’s cradling him in his arms.
I run towards him. Air pumping into my crying lungs. I feel out-of-body, like I’m floating, and to my left, the SFO bodyguards release their weight off Banks, and he races towards his twin brother.
First Responders pry Tony out of Thatcher’s clutch—taking him to an ambulance—and Thatcher nearly stumbles forward, but I come beside him.
I hold his waist.
Banks holds his other side, and we bring him to the second ambulance. Soot is smeared across his face and body. Skin eaten on his right shoulder. He’s badly burned.
Thatcher coughs, “I found him like that…a rafter knocked him out.” It must’ve taken him a while to carry Tony to the garage. He hacks up a lung. “I’m fine.”
“Like hell,” Banks says.
I can’t be upset at Thatcher for risking his life for Tony. It’s engrained in him, and to tell him to do differently would be to tell him to be less of who he is. I’m angry that it had to happen.
I’m angry at the circumstances.
I think Banks is too.
Thatcher takes a seat on the back of the ambulance. His hand—his hand is in mine. He seizes my gaze like he’s implanting me in his memory.
I’m crying all over again. “I love you, I love you. Don’t go anywhere. Please.”
“I won’t.” He brings me closer to hold me, but I won’t let him with his third-degree burns. I don’t want to hurt him.
“No. You need a hospital.” I flag down a paramedic, but I keep my hand in his.
Light touches his serious eyes.
Banks huffs at him. “You’re a fucking gabbadost’. I fucking wanna kick your ass right now and hug you.”
“I had to,” Thatcher coughs lightly. “Tony is family.”
“Yeah, and we all would’ve mourned you more than him.”
Thatcher shakes his head. “You’re just making me feel badly for him, Banks.” He suddenly doubles-over in a coughing fit.
We need to go.
Farrow jogs over to us, med bag slung across his chest. “Tony is alive and conscious.” He sweeps Thatcher. “Get your ass in the ambulance, Moretti.”
He straightens up, done coughing, and we’re about to help him. But he dips his head down and kisses my cheek, his lips brush my ear as he whispers, “I love you. Always, always.”
My heart swells. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Good. I don’t want you to.”
I climb into the ambulance right behind him. We steal glances in every beat.
He’s still here.
48
THATCHER MORETTI
I put her through hell. I put my brother through hell, and I hate that I dragged them down into that inferno. I understand too fucking well that what they endured was worse than smoke inhalation and third-degree burns.
It weighs on me at Philly General.
I’m on my feet in the hospital room, gripping my IV stand. Abandoning the bed. I can’t sit. I’ve already had to be motionless for hours while a nurse dressed my burn, applying moist, sterile gauze on my right shoulder. I’m lucky that I don’t need skin grafts.