It was one of the other girls on the landing. Lyla stayed still, deciding to ignore her. It wasn’t like she could get up anyway if she tried. It felt nice, just lying there as her body collapsed on itself.
The pounding faded away, the only noise in her ears of a whoosh, maybe her own blood. Her eyelids began to feel heavy, so she closed them, feeling like the earth was shaking underneath her.
No, it was shaking.
She was shaking.
Something was shaking her.
“Look at me!”
The loud, sharp command made her eyelids peel open to a slit, immediately locking with the devil’s gaze.
Death had come to take her, after all.
She smiled.
“Take me gently, death. I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispered, her mind dizzy, her eyes closing again.
“Open your eyes, flamma.”
A low, guttural demand followed by a touch on her cheek had her eyes opening again. He checked her eyes, put his hand on her neck, then growled, “Fuck!”
She felt something pinch at the side of her neck but wrote it off. She had been thinking of him, and in her last moments, her brain was being kind to her. That was a saving grace. Her delusions were taking pity on her. She couldn’t really complain.
“You.” Her voice was barely audible, her body slumping as he picked her up in his arms. “Tell me... tell me where he is...”
“Live for me and I’ll tell you,” he bargained as always, tucking her body close to his torso. He was cold and warm at the same time, and so, so solid. She wished she’d had him to hold on so many nights.
Tears fell down her face, and she tucked her nose in his neck, breathing in his distinctive scent.
“Please. It’s my last wish,” she cried softly, and felt his arms tighten around her. The delusion-him was nice too, he almost made her believe he was concerned for her.
“You have many wishes left in you, flamma, and I will lay every single one of them at your feet. Just keep fucking breathing, got that?”
The dark, guttural notes of his voice hit her simultaneously with another wave of heat. She whimpered and buried herself closer to him, grateful to her mind for conjuring him up so she wouldn’t feel alone in her last moments.
They were moving at a rapid pace. Noises and sights blurred, and she felt her limbs get heavier and heavier, her heart suddenly slowing, making her head spin.
“Were you... with someone else?” she asked on a hiccup, voicing her worst fear, her fingers tightening over his jacket as he lay her down somewhere, strapping her with belts. What was her mind doing? Why was it making him strap her somewhere?
He finished pulling the belts tight so she couldn’t move and gripped her face, making her focus for one second on his devilish mismatched eyes.
“You have been, you are, and you will always be my only obsession, Luna Caine.”
She cried out at the fact that he took another girl’s name, a sharp pain piercing her heart, before everything went black.