Page 147 of Forbidden Protector

Arnie.

Arnie is here.

He looks warm. He looks like his chest would be really warm right now. My chest is warm. It feels like anxiety is bubbling up in my chest, fizzing like a beer about to slop over the edge of the glass. But it’s a nice kind of anxiety, the kind that makes me feel all fluttery, even though he’s holding a gun.

It’s like I feel drawn to him. I can practically feel the strings of fate drawing us together. I don’t ever want to be apart from him again. Even now, I feel like crying because he’s so far away.

I want to smell his hair, hold his breath in mine. I want him to trace all the skin on my body and never let me go.

“You’re too late. She’s probably overdosed by now,” Eda says to Arnie.

She even sounds the same as she did back then.

Arnie gives me excitement and anxiety and fluttery feelings, but Eda gives me calm. She was there for me when no one else was. She needed me like I needed her. She stroked my hair and gave me special treats to help with my pain.

My body twitches beneath me. I can’t feel my fingers.

She… gave me ketamine. She kept giving me ketamine.I fought so long and so hard to… to not…

“Shhhh…. Shhhh… shhhh…” Someone is saying. I’m saying.

Sheknewand she gave me ketamine.The muzzy smile fades away from my face, and I try to lunge.

Arnie looks at me as I collapse on the floor.

He keeps looking at me.

BANG.

The sound reverberates through my head like a bell.

Eda goes as red as a blood-stained window.

He keeps looking at me, even though his gun is smoking and Eda is dead on the floor.

“Shhh… Shhh…”

Shhhh, now,cara. Everything will be alright.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Roisin

My head feels like it’s going to explode.

The drip, drip, drip of the blood-stained windows is driving me insane. Wait… what windows?

Everything aches. I want to stretch out every single one of my muscles individually, but there’s something restraining me. Every time I feel like moving my arm, it suddenly weighs a thousand pounds.

Everything from before feels murky. Like the carpet?

No, what carpet?

I was dancing on my birthday. My friends were there, and so was Arnie. We ate cake out of champagne glasses and laughed together. Then…

Then, someone attacked Arnie. They tried to get me, too, but I ran away, and Eda helped me escape. Only…

Only she was actually kidnapping me. She was going to give me to Padraic Duffy in exchange for power. Then she left me alone. With the ketamine.

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