Page 84 of Love Bleeds Red
He’s existed in fragments for a year and a half. A ghost. A shadow. The hope I clung to in those moments between sleeping and waking.
“Leon?” I whisper his name, afraid if I speak too loud he’ll vanish into thin air.
He’s real. He’s here. This isn’t a hallucination or wishful thinking.
Behind him two more figures step out of the shadows, and I forget how to breathe. My brother. He looks different, older, harder. His eyes are brimming with tears. And Damon, broader than before, more intimidating, with a look in his eyes that could kill.
“Bailey,” Jasper’s voice breaks slightly as he says my name. “Jesus Christ, Bailey.”
I can’t speak. Can’t move. Can’t process that after almost two years of hell, my family found me.
“Drop the gun. Now,” Leon repeats. He’s pulled a weapon and has it pointed at the guard. Damon follows suit, grabbing a gun from somewhere underneath his jacket.
The guard’s outnumbered and he knows it. His hand shakes as he glances at the radio clipped to his vest.
“I wouldn’t,” Damon says.
Polly coughs and I finally snap out of it. “She needs help.”
I’m scared to move, not with the guard’s gun still out. Jasper slowly steps toward me, but I see it in his eyes. He’s waiting too.
The guard’s eyes quickly dart between Leon’s weapon and his radio, barely visible but I catch it. His finger hovers near the trigger.
“Please,” I beg. “Let us go.”
His eyes land on Leon, hand moving slightly.
“Don’t,” Leon warns, his voice deadly calm.
But it’s too late. The guard starts to swing his weapon toward Leon, and everything happens at once.
A gunshot echos through the trees. Jasper runs for me. Polly cries out.
For a split second, I panic. Who fired the gun? Who’s hurt? Please, let it not be Leon.
But then the guard’s body slumps to the ground, his weapon falling beside him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LEON - PRESENT DAY
The guard falls,and time stops. Everything seems distant, like I’m watching someone else’s life unfold. There’s only ringing in my ears and a body—a large man, face down in the dirt. I’ve never… Jesus Christ. I’ve never shot a man in the head before. Never killed someone while looking them in the eyes. My hands shake as I lower my weapon, but there’s no time to process what I’ve just done.
Because Bailey is here. She’s real, and alive, and standing fifteen feet away from me with blood on her hands and terror in her eyes. Jasper’s holding her tight, murmuring, crying.
I close the space between us, needing to touch her, to feel that she’s alive. Fucking alive, and okay. But the blood…
“Are you hurt?” I ask, reaching for her hands.
“Leon?” She whispers my name, her voice exactly like I remember. The wall surrounding my heart cracks in two. Shit. Tears well in my eyes. “I can’t believe you’re real.”
I feel the same way but I don’t have words to relay that.
She’s here.
Thinner, with longer hair, and wearing a frilly dress I’d never have recognized her in. But she’s Bailey.
The other women’s cries of agony snap me back to reality, and Bailey runs to her. “Help her, please!”
