Page 196 of Phantom Mine

He grits his teeth and nods, fresh determination crossing his face. His feet falter and he stumbles, but my hold on his arm keeps him from falling. I lift his arm and wrap it around my shoulders.

“I’ve got you, Phantom,” I vow. “I’ve got you.”

With my side glued to his chest, I force him to lean more of his weight on me.

We make it five meters before I’m forced to stop and readjust. A heavy coughing fit bursts out of me as I place his arm differently around my neck. The air is thick with smoke and barely breathable.

“I’m slowing you down,” Matteo groans, removing his arm entirely from my shoulders. “I can walk,cara.”

He takes a stubborn step forward before I grab his forearm and curl it around me once more. “We’re doing this together, Phantom.” Sweat rolls down the side of his face. “Together. Now, come on, lean on me again. We’re almost there, I promise.”

A slight creaking echoes in the air.

It’s followed immediately by a substantially more terrifying cracking, ripping sound.

Matteo and I both look up at the same time.

There’s a tense beat of uneasy silence amidst the discord of the raging inferno, and then the massive wooden beam above our heads separates from the ceiling in a blazing ball of flames and comes hurtling towards us at speed.

Terror opens up a gaping hole in the bottom of my stomach, but I’m stuck. I can’t make my body react, I can’t make myselfmove, even as I watch the beam approach.

Matteo isn’t similarly affected. It feels as if time slows to a near stop as his arm slips off my shoulders, his head tips back down and his eyes find mine. The flames reflect a gruesome dance in the green of his irises.

He smiles at me.

Later, I’ll remember the feeling that twisted my gut seeing acceptance wash over his face. I’ll remember the panic that flooded into my veins, the lump that jerked into my throat, and the voice that started screaming in my head.

But in the moment, time accelerates back to normal and I don’t process the realization. It all happens too quickly.

Dread shutters my hearing, leaving me to stare only at the shape of his next words when they find a home on his lips.

“I love you,” Matteo declares.

He doesn’t wait for me to say it back.

His palms find my chest and he shoves me violently away from him.

“No–No!” I shriek.

My hand reaches out for him, my arm outstretched. Our eyes stay locked on each other as I fall, mine in sheer disbelief, his steadfastly determined. My fingers close around nothing but air as I hit the ground, the momentum making me skid backwards. Distantly, I’m aware of stinging pain shooting up my palms and into my wrists from where I catch my fall.

The throbbing barely registers.

I can only watch in horror as the fiery beam hits Matteo where he still stands. It makes contact with his bare back and the force of it flings his body brutally forward. His face is frozen, contorted into a grimace of indescribable pain as an agonized howl erupts from the depths of his chest. It’s the last thing I see before he collapses. The beam moves with him, pinning him to the ground beneath it.

A throat ripping scream echoes around us, piercing through the flames like a blade. It’s jagged and raw, unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.

The sound of a soul being crudely ripped in half.

I feel it reverberating in my bones, shaking my insides, and stabbing at my mind.

That’s how I realize I’m the one screaming.

“Matteo!” I howl, rushing to my feet. “Oh my god,Matteo.”

I’m dizzy, unsteady, and my legs give out beneath me. I crawl to him instead, the tears washing down my face.

It takes barely a few seconds to reach him, but time feels like it’s moving at warp speed against me.

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