Page 97 of Freestyle
A cruel spiral of angry blistered flesh, still gleaming faintly, edges puckered where the freeze kissed too long. My throat dries out. My hands curl at my sides, because if I don’t hold onto something, I’llbreaksomething.
He did this. That pathetic excuse for a man.
He branded her.
She shouldn’t be touching my shoulder right now, whispering “I’m okay” with that brittle, brave voice.
I should be the one wrecked. Iam.
I brush trembling fingers along the unburned edge of her thigh, as light as breath.
“Gray—” she starts, but I shake my head.
“Don’t,” I say, barely recognizing my own voice. “Don’t tell me you’re fine. Don’t protect me from this.”
She quiets.
Good.
Because there’s fury behind my ribs I can’t shove down, not anymore. My lungs are filled with it, my bones vibrating.
Behind me, I hear a grunt. A groan.
And then Nix’s voice.
“Gray,” he says, breathless.
I turn to see him slouched against the edge of the fountain like gravity’s finally catching up to him.
Phoenix.
His arm is pressed tight against his side, blood blooming too fast through the fabric of his sleeve and even though I heard him say he was fine, I can see it now, he’s not.
Not really.
Rowyn is at least safe, breathing beside me, but every instinct in my chest pulls me toward him like a magnet just snapped.
“Nix,” I rasp, already moving.
He looks up at me, his smirk wobbly, pain tucked behind his teeth. “It just grazed me,” he says. “Flirted, really. Not my type.”
But his fingers are shaking.
When I reach him, I drop to my knees, my hands on his arm before I even think. The wound is bad. Deep enough to leave a scar. Too close.
Way too close.
“What happened?” I ask. “The comms shut down.”
“He had a knife to her throat and an iron on her leg, and she was screaming. I did what anyone would do. I tackled him, but he pulled a gun. He may have gotten me, but I threw him in the fountain and held his head underwater until he stopped moving,” Nix explains with a shrug like it’s just another day.
“You could’ve—” My voice catches, thick with everything I didn’t let myself feel until now. “Youcould’ve—”
He opens his mouth likehe’s got something clever to say, something that’ll make this easier.
But I don’t let him.
I cup his cheeks, rough and fast and full of everything I can’t articulate, and press my mouth to his.
