Page 62 of The Kiss of Deception

My elbows dig into my thighs as my head falls between my shoulders dragged by the weight of the guilt.

I want to rip my chest open with my bare hands and tuck her behind my ribcage, right next to my heart where she belongs, where she’s made a permanent address, to keep her safe.

But the rip is a tectonic shift, and I’m already cracked in half.

“Zoe,” I say, barely recognizing my own voice, trampled by pain and panic. “Please, wake up. Come back to me, love.”

There are so many things I haven’t told her.

All I’ve done is let her believe all the lies we told each other.

All I’ve done is lie, lie, lie, yet punishment fell upon her.

And isn’t Zoe the most thorough torture I could receive for my sins?

I count every breath and every second until the next one comes, my own exhales timed with the precious beep of her heart on the monitor. It finally dissolves the buzz inside my skull, the dull deafening echo of a million bees, and I can hear myself thinking.

All I think is why?

Why is Zoe lying unconscious in a hospital bed while I stand in perfect shape?

Why would anyone hurt her?

Why her?

Why not me?

Why?

Why?

Chapter Fifteen

Zoe

The sharp throb of my temple tells me I’m alive.

Death cannot be so painful.

Consciousness creeps up on me like a rising tide. Wave after wave, conquering further and further on the sand. Slowly, steadily, until the ocean reclaims what it owns, what it’s owed, and my mind is back in my body.

Bright lights overhead are blinding, hurting my eyes that feel unusually sensitive. They refuse to fully open yet, but the warmth on my hand is familiar. The grip tightens as I draw a long breath, grounding me, slowly chasing away the pricks of numbness in my limbs.

My name is a reluctant whisper, like he fears the mere sound will hurt me or send me back into unconsciousness.

“Zoe? Love?” The endearment is so tender with concern it almost feels like a sucker punch to my aching gut.

Something tickles my nostrils, and my nose scrunches. Miles readjusts the oxygen cannula, letting his knuckle stroke my cheek as he withdraws.

“Hi,” I try to say. It’s barely a croak, alien to my own ears.

He doesn’t reply, doesn’t move, doesn’t exhale for a long minute, as though he doesn’t quite believe my eyelids have unglued, or that my lips are moving.

After one thousand blinks, the blur clears completely from my eyes. I focus on him, a small smile inadvertently tilting my face when his features soften. The sigh that follows is bigger than him, reverberating against the bare walls of the room.

One thousand swallows are needed, too, to clear the soreness from my throat.

“What—Who—” I pause to drop my voice to an ominous tone. “Who are you?”

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