Page 136 of You Were Always Mine
My chest heaves, each breath tearing like broken glass through my lungs. My arms are numb, trembling, but my fingers stay locked around what’s left of his throat. The skin is ruined beneath me—dark red and slick, veins burst, face mottled with black and purple bruises, his lips cracked and oozing, his eyes half-open but vacant.
Tyler doesn’t look like a person anymore.
He looks like the inside of my rage dragged out onto the concrete—every ounce of him stamped and broken by me.
Scar’s hands claw at my arm, her voice wrecked, desperate.
“Kai—please—” she sobs, nails digging, tugging. “Stop. He’s gone, he’s gone, please?—”
Her strength is nothing against mine, but I feel her trembling all the way to the bone. She’s not pulling me off Tyler. She’s trying to pull me backinto myself.
And then her voice cracks into the night, fragile and shattered:
“What have you done… oh God, what have you done?”
Over and over. A prayer. A curse. A broken record as she sobs.
I finally tear my gaze away from the ruin at my feet, my chest heaving, sweat and blood sticking my shirt to me. My hands—Jesus Christ—my hands are drenched. Crimson drips between my fingers, streaking down my arms, staining my skin until I can’t tell where I end and the blood begins.
Scar is in front of me now, pale face streaked with tears, wide eyes locked on my hands like she can’t reconcile what I am with who I was. And for a moment, the silence is louder than the fight ever was—just me, her, and the wreckage sprawled in the dirt between us.
Her fingers slip under my wrist, sticky with his blood, small hands pulling, begging, but I don’t move. Tyler’s head lolls, jaw slack, one eye swollen shut, the other staring at nothing. His chest doesn’t rise. His throat is crushed beneath my grip.
Scar is sobbing, her whole body trembling against my arm, whispering it over and over—what have you done, what have you done—like if she says it enough, the night might rewind.
Finally, I let my hand fall. Tyler’s body hits the ground like dead weight. The blood on my palms is already tacky, streaking her skin where she clutches me.
I turn to her. Her eyes are wide, tears glistening in the dark.
I lean in, my voice nothing but a rasp, raw and broken.
“Don’t look at him,” I whisper, tilting her face towardsme, smearing her cheek with red. “Look at me, Scar. This—” I raise my hands between us, slick and shaking, “—this was for you.”
The silence that follows is heavier than the body at our feet.
Her chest heaves like she can’t breathe, tears carving clean tracks through the dirt on her cheeks. My words hang between us, thick as smoke, heavier than the blood still dripping from my knuckles.
She stares at my hands, at the mess I’ve made, then up at me. And for a second—just one—there’s no Tyler, no body cooling at our feet, no sound except her broken breath.
Her lips part. Her voice comes out cracked, raw, almost swallowed by the night.
“You… you did this for me.”
Not a question. Not disbelief. Just a whisper—equal parts horror and need.
It cuts through me sharper than any blade.
I lean closer, close enough to feel her shaking against me, close enough she can’t escape my eyes, and press my forehead to hers.
“I’d do it again,” I rasp, voice breaking into something near a sob. “Don’t you get it, Scar? I’d do it a thousand times.”
The words sit there like a curse, binding us both, with his body cooling inches away.
Her whole body stiffens against mine, like my words don’t melt into her but burn straight through. Her eyes, wide and wet, dart from the blood on my face to the ruin at our feet, then back to me, her lips trembling as if the truth rips itself out without her consent.
“I… I didn’t want this.”
Barelya whisper—but it guts me.
