“Max, open your fucking eyes!”
Why the fuck isn’t he opening his eyes?
“Winter.” It’s Ransom’s voice, but it filters out of my consciousness as fast as it filters in.
Club members surround me.
Their anger blazes in the air.
The noise and the chatter and the goddam fucking buzz crash into me until I can’t fucking hear myself think. Yanking my brother’s body to me, I roar, “Stop! Stop fucking talking!”
Max has no pulse.
The life in his eyes has bled out.
His blood oozes from him.
My brother is dead.
Dead.
The oxygen I need refuses to enter my body.
He can’t be dead.
I just spoke to him on the phone.
He was alive.
Coming to see me.
“Max. Open your fucking eyes.”
Ransom crouches next to me. “Winter. He’s gone, brother.” I hear every drop of regret in his voice. I want to take that regret and smash it into pieces. I do not want to hear it. My brother can’t be fucking gone.
Ransom touches my arm. “Winter—”
I push him away.
I push away everything he’s saying.
His words slash and gouge and hack.
I can’t listen to them.
I just fucking spoke to him.
And then reality shatters through me like a fucking wrecking ball.
I told him to come here.
I did this to him.
I killed my brother.
24
Winter