Page 131 of Ruthless Kings of Obsession

That's when I feel it - warm wetness seeping through her red coat, staining my hands dark in the dim lighting. My heart stops as understanding dawns.

Blood. So much blood.

"Scarlett?" My voice emerges barely above a whisper, terror making my hands shake as I try to find the source of the bleeding. "Jesus Christ, Scarlett!"

Her eyes flutter open, and somehow she manages a smile despite everything. Blood stains her teeth pink as she looks up at me, something like wry amusement dancing in her gaze.

"You know," she mumbles, voice growing weaker, "always envied how lucky Gemini got it. All the men around her... had to be so fucking gorgeous." A weak laugh escapes her, followed by a wet cough that sends more blood trickling from her lips. "Guess it's a privilege... but if I have to die... at least I get to see a pretty face while I do it."

"Don't talk like that," I snap, finally finding the bullet wounds hidden beneath her coat. Multiple entry points, precision shotsdesigned to cause maximum damage while allowing the victim to walk away briefly - to deliver whatever message they were meant to carry. "You're not dying. Just hold on."

"It's okay," she whispers, her hand finding mine where I'm trying desperately to apply pressure to the worst wounds. "Not like... anyone's going to cry if I die anyway. No Kings... no real friends... just another nobody who wanted... somewhere to belong."

"Shut up." The words come out rough as I fumble for my phone with bloody hands. "Save your strength. I'm getting help."

My fingers move on autopilot, dialing Kian's number. It feels wrong somehow - calling in favors for someone outside our immediate circle. But something about Scarlett's sacrifice, about her desperate attempt to warn us despite knowing she was already marked for death... I can't let her die like this.

Won't let her become another example of what happens when you dare question the carefully maintained hierarchies controlling our world.

"You have to protect the next target," she gasps suddenly, her grip on my hand tightening with surprising strength. "Or it's game over... all of you... thrown into the den... like scorpions ready to play death games."

"What?" I press harder against her wounds, trying to understand her fevered rambling. "Scarlett, what do you mean? What den?"

A ghost of her usual sharp smile plays at her bloodstained lips. "Funny thing about scorpion venom..." she manages between increasingly labored breaths. "How it lingers... how it plays with its food before delivering the final strike. Some victims... take days to die... organs shutting down one by one while the poison spreads..."

Understanding hits like a physical blow as I process her words. Because that's exactly what's happening across campus- carefully engineered diseases acting like poison, spreading through targeted populations with devastating precision.

"We're all just lab rats," she continues, her voice growing fainter. "Test subjects... experiments to perfect their methods before... before the real game begins."

"Like Domino," I breathe, pieces clicking into place. "Like whatever's happening to him right now..."

"Smart cookie," she murmurs, blood bubbling at the corners of her mouth. "You'll figure it out... without me... just remember... scorpions always... always save their deadliest poison... for the final strike..."

Her eyes roll back as consciousness finally slips away, her body going limp in my arms. The phone rings endlessly in my ear as I try to maintain pressure on her wounds while supporting her head.

"Come on," I mutter, watching her skin grow paler with each passing second. "Come on, Kian, pick up. Please..."

Because I can't let her die like this - alone in a parking lot, bleeding out from wounds meant to serve as warnings to others. Can't let her become another statistic in The Blind One's carefully orchestrated demonstration of power.

She deserves better than being reduced to a message. Deserves more than dying in the arms of someone who barely knows her, who's only just beginning to understand the depth of her sacrifice.

"Hold on," I whisper, though I'm not sure she can hear me anymore. "Just hold on a little longer. Please."

Blood continues to seep between my fingers as I wait for help that might already be too late. The night air carries bitter promises of everything still to come - every carefully planned destruction, every engineered illness, every poison designed to break us piece by piece.

But all I can focus on is the girl dying in my arms. The one who dared question the system. Who tried to warn us even knowing it would cost her everything.

The one who might become another example of exactly what happens when you step out of line in a world where even breathing wrong can mark you for destruction.

And something in my chest burns - not just with grief or anger, but with terrible purpose. Because she's right - we have to be the ones to break this. Have to be the ones to finally shatter the carefully maintained systems of control that have claimed too many lives for too many generations.

No matter what it costs.

No matter what poisons they design to try to stop us.

No matter how many scorpions they throw us to in their desperate attempt to maintain power.

Scarlett's blood stains my hands like a promise as I hold her, waiting for help that might come too late. But maybe that's what she wanted - to make sure we understood exactly what we're fighting. What we're all marked for if we dare continue challenging the careful hierarchies that have defined our world for so long.

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