Page 31 of Whistle

When my sister died, there was shock. So much shock. And then a hollowness as literally half of me was ripped away. I didn’t know what it felt like for other people to lose a loved one, but Brynne was my twin. I’d never known life without her. We’d literally been conceived at the same time, developed together, and took our first breaths just minutes apart. She was a literal extension of me, our DNA the same.

And then she was gone.

The pain was unbearable, her memory a form of torture.

And the guilt? It literally feasted, daily, on what was left of me.

I took all of that, trashed my life, burned my bridges, free-fell through Mexico, and nearly killed myself ten times over with drugs and alcohol. I’d slammed hard into rock bottom at Two Towers.

Or so I thought.

He told me he cared. I do.

Then he’d followed up the words with action. Kicking in my bedroom door. Using his body as a battering ram so I could breathe. The second a gun appeared, he threw me behind him, becoming a shield.

He came from a place I hated. I didn’t know him. Didn’t like him.

He took a bullet for me.

As if he thought there was something left worth protecting.

And I killed that too.

“No,” I wailed without much force, for I cried out in desperation, not anger. Wild-eyed and with nothing left to lose, I hurried into my room, seeing Rush standing there staring, his eyes wide.

I shoved him on my way past, seeing the bodies on the floor, a guttural groan ripping out of me as I fell onto my knees, carpet burning my skin as I crawled toward him.

“I’m sorry,” I rasped. “I’m sorry.”

My fingers grappled for his shirt, and I used the fabric to climb him. I fell, landing against his warm body, folding in.

I cried, but no tears fell. My well was dry, the ability I had for sorrow dehydrated. Yet still, my heart produced it, and it felt somehow worse being wrenched from an already wrung-out soul.

The murmur of voices came close but couldn’t make it as deep as I was buried. And then hands were in my hair, knotting in my curls and massaging my scalp.

“Bodhi,”

“I’m sorry.”

“Bodhi, look at me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and refused. It was enough to feel the basement of rock bottom. I didn’t want to see it too.

Probably so much blood.

“Goldilocks.”

My eyes flew open and I gasped, seeing the sunbursts in the center of his eyes, an up-close view that really glowed with a golden hue. His lashes were short and dark, sort of an aggressive frame for eyes so breathtaking.

“Goldilocks,” he said again, his voice having the same buzz effect as a belly full of whiskey. “I’m not shot.”

My heart stuttered, fingers tightening in his shirt even more. And then the words registered. I blinked. Took in his eyes again. Eyes that were free of pain.

It was too much to make sense of. The pieces of my world blown too far apart to assemble them so quickly. “What?”

“He’s a terrible shot. It went wide.” Emmett gestured with his chin, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him to look.

“You aren’t shot?” I reiterated.

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