Page 13 of Crimson Flames

Evie takes his arm and turns him to face her. “I will take you to her room when she has one.”

Kai looks at Alexi. “Can I have the gun back, please? I just want to be the one to give it back to her.”

Reluctantly, Alexi hands it back to him, a firm but understanding look on his face. I hate the idea of a teenager having a gun, but I also understand that he hasn’t felt safe in a while, and Nessa trusted him with something I know she holds dear.

“The safety stays on unless someone is attacking youphysically. Understood?”

Kai agrees, carefully tucking it into the back of his pants before hiding it with his shirt.

“Whatever you say, Batman.”

Alexi’s eyes narrow as Evie and I exchange an amused look. I have to roll my lips together to stop the cackle that is building because now is absolutely not the time.

“You can call me Alexi.”

Kai looks him up and down before shrugging. “Nah, I think Batman suits you better. You’ve got the whole look going for you.”

With that, he turns on his heel to head towards the door. I follow, listening to the sound of Evie’s giggles behind me. I have a feeling that Kai is someone who’s going to be around for a while.

Chapter 4

We walk back to the recovery room to find Nessa with a tube in her mouth and a ventilator breathing for her. There are so many IV lines connected to her that she seems more machine than human. Her face is paler than I’ve ever seen, and a large patch of dressing is covering her stomach.

The nurse walks me through everything at the bedside, helping me understand what happened during surgery. I have no idea how our girl made it, but she’s our fighter.

I feel nauseous as I look at her. While I know it’s Nessa, she looks nothing like herself right now.

Boris comes in a moment after me and stops dead in his tracks, taking in her form. He looks like he wants to run, and I don’t know if he will be able to come back from it if he does it again.

Right now, I don’t see how any of us will survive this.

The nurse urges me forward, so I do what I have been hoping for hours to get another chance at. My hand finds Nessa’s under the blanket, and I squeeze it gently. She is so cold to the touch, her skin so white she almost looks blue.

Boris steps up to her other side and does the same. Silently, the nurse brings us each a chair, and we just sit there, trying to be thankful Nessa is alive while grieving the loss of our baby.

It’s insane to think about. We just saved forty-six kids from a life of slavery and trauma, and in the end we couldn’t even protect our own.

She warned us of this. She said protecting them would be too hard and that we should never think we’re invincible. I naively thought I could be different. I thought I could be stronger, better.

Nessa had even loosened her vest at one point, and all of her stomach was covered when she was shot. I’m starting to think the person who did this had to have known exactly what they were aiming for.

I try to stay calm by breathing through my nose, but my chest is cracking in half the longer I sit here staring at her beautiful, ashen face.

How did I get here? I got her back just for us to have to go through all of this?

If it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t be here like this. I was the one who got us stuck in those torture rooms. I was the reason she lost her IUD. And I was part of the reason she got pregnant.

Would she be better off if I were gone?

No. Nope. I am not doing that.

I will not be the man who runs when she needs me the most. She would assume I hated her for losing our child, and I can’t let her think that.

I have to stay strong. I have to stay.

After a while, the nurse comes over with a very small bundle, wrapped in pink cloth in her hand.

“Would you like to hold her?”

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