An icy tide washed over every part of my body that wasn’t in Keltan’s arms.
“Baby,” he murmured, pure fear saturating his tone, his eyes focusing on the spot where red liquid was leaking out of the gaps between my hands.
Though the sheer volume and speed might’ve fostered the word “gushing” more than leaking.
I thought it was bad. As was the lack of pain and the utter paleness and emptiness in Keltan’s eyes.
“Lucy,” he clipped urgently, gently pushing my hands out of the way to expose my wound for a split second before covering it with his large one.
Less liquid leaked through his hands, but they were still covered in less than an instant. The tanned skin quickly stained with blood too.
Keltan’s body was stone and yet it vibrated with chaos at the same time. There was no still there.
None.
Only fear.
Only the waters that beckoned me to drown once more.
That he was fighting off with bloodstained hands.
“Someone call a fuckin’ ambulance!” he roared at the gathering people on the street. Now that there was blood, a swooning woman and an attractive yet murderous man, it was interesting for L.A. dwellers jaded to most streetside dramas. My eyes followed the really jaded or really busy ones who spared my prone and bleeding form only a lingering glance before going about their day.
I didn’t blame them. I almost preferred them to the gaping crowd standing there, spectators to my death.
Was that what I was? Dying?
The stillness of my body that communicated yes, I might be in fact dying gave way to a quick shake. My eyes wandered back to chocolate brown ones.
“Snow, stay with me,” Keltan ordered brusquely, in a tone that somehow communicated I might have control over such an action. The desperation in them told me he wished he had that control. The mere catching of his words on the air gave me something to grasp on to. He clutched my neck with the hand that wasn’t putting pressure on my wound. “You hear that, Lucy? You watch my eyes and you hold the fuck on.”
I did watch his eyes. I wanted them to anchor me to the moment so I could stay in them forever.
“If your name’s on the bullet, there’s nothing you can do.”
The soft echo of his own words taunted me with the fact that even with him as an anchor, the universe could drag me away if fate so willed it.
Kismet.
It seemed very cruel to bring me to him just to take me away.
But I felt like I idly thought Laurie might have. If kismet designed the only way for me to breathe with Keltan would end with me drowning on the street, then I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I coughed in my effort to let words out. The sound was gargled and wet and I didn’t like it, not at all. “I…. You,” I started to say. “I’m not running anymore,” I choked out.
His grip tightened, both at my neck and the gaze which held me tighter than any hands could. “No, Snow. You’re never gonna run. I promise. You just gotta hold up your end, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“My end?” I repeated on a whisper, losing the battle with the ice that even Keltan’s furnace couldn’t chase back to the grave.
“Stayin’ with me. Still. So I don’t have to run either,” he murmured. Pleaded. Prayed. “But you gotta run from this. Don’t let it catch you. Take you.”
Never in my life had I needed to be less still. Even the pain that had taken me by such surprise in its terribleness was a welcome movement. Welcome chaos.
But then, as soon as you welcome chaos, stillness reigns.
And that was when you were in trouble.
And not the good kind.
I woke up to blinding sunlight. But as I blinked I realized it wasn’t blinding. I was warm, not too hot but perfect. The heat circled my bare skin like a physical embrace. All I could see was blue, unwavering blue. A cloudless sky so beautiful all I wanted to do was dive into it.
I was on my back, lying on the grass. Not something I would do normally. Grass wasn’t comfortable to lie on. It itched, there were bugs and it stained clothes. Give me a stool at a cocktail bar anytime.
But this grass was like the sun. Warm, comforting, inviting. Made to circle me and make me safe.
I didn’t want to get up, but a flash of gold at the corner of my eye had me sitting up abruptly.
The loss of the comfort should have been jarring, but the air seemed to accommodate my movement, making it easy, lithe, unhurried.
Everything was effortless.
So I stood, without that pain that was now little more than a dream. Everything was little more than a dream. That whole other life.