My heart clenches so tightly that it's hard to breathe.
I suppress a sob, but the tears are streaming. There is no way to stop them. There is no way to change anything or make his life better. Kai’s scars are my doing.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," I beg into darkness.
But the apology can't stitch together the years of hurting and hating and drowning in shame with the realization that I was spared the worst at someone else's expense.
His.
The boy who once upon a time made my heart beat like nothing had done before.
Who in the last few weeks made it whole again and made me forget the awful feelings that haunted me for years.
Kai, I'm sorry.
But no amount of words can push away the sharp razors that slice my heart into pieces.
Because I can't tell him that.
He is not with me.
Because just like four years ago, he is left behind.
52
KAI
We gruntas we carry Bo down to the dining area. We stumble and curse. Bo is heavy, and we are running out of time. His wound is bandaged with our shirts, but the blood is seeping through. Bo is silent, his head bobbing from side to side, and it’s a bad fucking sign.
“Hold up, bro,” I murmur as we approach the dining room.
The other goons are gone as quickly as they appeared. The air is bitter with the nasty smell of burned plastic and chemical from the foam.
Owen and Guff duck under our arms and help so we can carry Bo faster. They work like soldiers. We bring him to the table, other guys pick him up by his feet, and we carefully lay him down on the wooden table.
Maddy is already barking out orders, and the first-aid box is next to her.
There is a bucket of clean water.
There are bandages.
She works like a pro, the other girls setting the stuff from the medical cabinet down on the table.
I want to beat someone’s face to a pulp as I stare at Bo’s motionless body on that table, the girls already undoing the dirty shirts.
They talk some medical gibberish. Thank God for Maddy who is a doctor.Wassupposed to be a doctor. She is as good at everything she does. Someone will fall in love with her one day.
I feel Ty’s hand on my shoulder and clench my teeth.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” I hiss, thinking of the person I would like to annihilate right now.
Jeok motions for Owen to shine the flashlights onto Bo so that the girls have more light. “How is it looking?”
Maddy shakes her head. “Not good.” She holds a syringe in her hand, shoots a tiny squirt of liquid into the air, and I hope for a fucking miracle. “We don’t know yet,” she adds. “But he might need a surgery, and I am not a surgeon.”
I storm away, feeling like my heart will explode if I don’t do something.
The brother that I had is fucking dying. And the girl I love has been taken away.