Coiling his fingers into a fist, aiming right for the very center of her torso—her third chakra—her one major weak spot—just like I taught him.
Only it doesn’t connect.
Damen inadvertently catches him in midflight and knocks him off course at the very last second.
While Miles instinctively, nobly, foolishly, rushes forward to help me, only to get caught in Haven’s snare as she grips the shirt in one hand and her best childhood friend in the other.
Her fingers squeezing tightly around his neck as Miles kicks and gasps and struggles to free himself.
And one look in her eyes is all it takes to see that she means it.
To see just how dark and evil she’s become.
Everything they’ve shared means nothing to her.
She has every intention of killing him if for no other reason than to hurt me.
To force me into choosing, whether I like it or not.
Flashing me one last, horrible grin as she squeezes Miles so hard his eyes are about to burst from his head—simultaneously shrieking with delight as she drops the shirt into the blazing fire where it’s greedily met by the flames.
All of it happening so quickly, in less than a fraction of a second, though it seems to play out in slow motion before me.
Her face looming, hateful and obscene, gleaming with the victory, the absolute thrill—of getting to me.
So while Damen untangles himself from Jude, I draw back my fist, recalling the manifested version of this scene I rehearsed all those months ago, and noting how it’s nothing like the all-too-real version that plays out before me.
Mostly because I have no regrets.
No reason to apologize.
No choice but to kill her before she kills Miles.
I slam my knuckles straight into her chest, feeling it connect smack into the sweet spot.
Seeing the flash of shock in her gaze, as Damen snatches Miles from her grasp, and I leap into the flames.
My flesh scorching, burning, bubbling, peeling—the pain white hot and agonizingly searing.
Though I pay it no notice.
I just keep going, reaching, grasping, seeking.
All of my focus narrowed down to this one single thing—trying to save the shirt—even though it’s clearly too late.
Even though it’s been swallowed whole, consumed by the flames, leaving no trace that it ever existed.
Vaguely aware of the sound of Miles’s and Jude’s frantic cries coming from somewhere behind me.
Vaguely aware of Damen’s arms grasping, holding, soothing, pulling me out of the fire and smothering the raging inferno that’s consuming my clothes, my hair, my flesh.
Pulling me tightly to his chest, whispering into my ear over and over again that it’ll all be okay. That he’ll find a way. That the shirt doesn’t matter. The important thing is that Miles and Jude are safe and we still have each other.
Begging me to close my eyes, to look the other way, to avoid the hideous sight of my staggering, gasping, dying, former best friend.
But I don’t listen.
I allow my eyes to meet hers.