Page 150 of Born for Silk

My spine gives way.

My torso hits the dirt.

Chapter Sixteen

Aster

My hands shake violently as I lower them from the scope.

Blink.

I know what I just witnessed. My eyes took in the dense, shadowy scene. The fire and wind combined created waves of flickering lights that helped me see, however, intermittently.

I saw. Odio dropped to a heap, and Rome took bullets, so many bullets, trying to get to him right before the Trade arrived with reinforcements and blocked my view with a giant tyre track.

I saw it… But while I saw it, my heart and soul are not tearing, not shredding, my subconscious denies my eyes. He isn’t dead. I would know.

“Aster? What did you see?” I hear Han, but his voice is far away, or maybe I am drifting.

I answer his true question—he is not asking about Odio or Rome. He asks whether it is safe.

“It’s safe,” I mutter before spinning, singularly focused, to find the other person who shares my concerns.

Tuscany is walking toward me, the ghost of worry in her amber gaze. I see my emotions reflected in her glassy pools of love and fear.

Hollow, I mutter, “He was shot.”

She covers her gasp. “Where?”

My head shakes over and over, remembering all the bullets. So many. In his back. Side. Leg.

“Everywhere,” I say, my throat tightening. No. No. Not now. Do not break in half now.

I refuse to believe it.

I am breathing, and so he must be, too. He must be breathing, existing. I cannot have a mind, a consciousness if he does not.

I swallow over the ball of hot, angry tears. Absently, I lift my gaze to the hatch as it opens. To release us. Free us.

Detached.

The girls climb out.

Detached.

The room empties.

Detached.

I am suddenly on the surface.

Detached.

I am walking outside through the grave of the storm, the wind quieter, surrounded by activity, lights from vehicles, Trade personnel, Endigo’s being arrested, doctors tending to wounds, and?—

Beyond a gathering of people, within a protective circle, I see his boots on the ground.

I lurch toward him.

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