Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)(90)
Fucking pray. Pray to some deity I don’t believe in. Rewind time. I would give anything to take Rose’s place, if that’s what it took to save her. “Take the phone and wait for the ambulance.”
“Okay,” she says, her voice a tight whisper as she rises.
“Lark?” I meet Lark’s eyes, the crystalline blue surrounded by the shine of tears. Blood is caked in her hair and streaked across her face and neck. “Tell them to run. We don’t have much time.”
She swallows and nods, and then she runs, talking to dispatch as she disappears around the corner.
When she’s gone, Lachlan returns to kneel by Rose’s feet, raising her legs on his own. “I’m sorry, Fionn.”
“I don’t fucking care,” I snap, kicking the first aid kit. The metal scrapes across the floor. We’ve already used all the gauze. The blanket. I was able to fix a fucking dog, but I don’t have the means to help the woman I love. All I can do is hold on and hope. I stare down at her pale face, so beautiful and serene, her thick lashes unmoving as I increase the pressure on a wound that must have burned with pain until the moment she slipped into unconsciousness. Tears flood my vision. “I can’t fix her with that,” I whisper.
I can feel the weight of my brother’s gaze on my face, but I don’t look up when he braces a hand on my shoulder. My first tears fall on Rose’s skin, settling on her chest where shallow breaths rise and fall in a rapid beat.
“Why didn’t I tell her?” I ask. “I love her. Why didn’t I say it?”
Lachlan squeezes my shoulder. I press my eyes shut and drop my head to my chest. “You’re right that it’s my fault, brother. For more than just what happened to Rose. It always has been. All the way back to that night with Dad. Maybe even before that.”
“You’re wrong.” I swallow. Confessions that have waited for so long in the dark finally work their way to my lips, ready to spill into the world. “It was me. I’m the one who killed him.”
I glance his way only long enough to catch his confusion out of the corner of my eye. “What do you mean?”
“I ratted him out to the Mayes family. That night he came back home, when the fight started, I couldn’t let him win. You and Rowan were on the floor, both of you too much in shock to notice. You didn’t see. But it was me. I stabbed him in the back.” I hang my head and stare at Rose. Maybe everything would have been different if I’d been honest all along. Honest with her about how I felt. Honest with my brothers for what I’d done. Honest with myself. “I’m the one who killed him.”
“You didn’t.” Lachlan leans closer. His breath fans across my face. “Maybe you brought him down, but trust me, brother. I’m the one who killed him. I felt his last breaths in my hands. And I have no regrets about that. None.” I can feel the weight of his attention on my face, but I still can’t meet his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“You’re my older brother. I couldn’t bear to disappoint you.”
When I finally look at Lachlan, there are tears in his eyes too. There’s so much regret in the way he holds my gaze and looks into me. “I put so many expectations on you, and when that life you thought we wanted didn’t fit the neat little boxes you’d made, you started pushing everyone away. You’ve been running. From me. Rowan. Now Rose. You’ve been running from any love for so long you didn’t know when to stop. And that’s my fault.”
“What if I’m too late?”
Lachlan doesn’t ask the thousand things that could mean. He just leans closer. “I know you better than anyone. You’re going to get her into that ambulance. And you are going to save her, no matter what it takes.” He wraps his hand around the back of his neck and presses his forehead to mine. “She’s still fighting. So you keep fighting.”
When he pulls away, I face Rose with renewed determination.
He’s right. I will do whatever it takes to save her.
The minutes that pass crawl through time. I talk to Rose. I tell her to hold on. Keep fighting. Wake up, just look at me. She’s in a battle she’s losing. Her abdomen is swollen. The last hints of color slowly drain from her face. The pink of her lips lightens. I press the gauze to her wound as hard as I can as I lean down to kiss her cheek, her skin cold and pale.
Lark bursts into the room with two paramedics and three police officers on her heels, the gurney wheels squeaking on the concrete floor. I give them the information I have. I lift Rose onto the stretcher, her limbs limp across my arms. The paramedics strap her down and lift the frame, locking it into place, and then we run. I hold her hand. I don’t let go. Not as we lift the stretcher into the ambulance. Not as I climb into the back with her. I look back out the doors and my brother and Lark are there, flanked by officers.
Lachlan gives me a nod, his lips pressed into a tight line. I don’t miss the way Lark squeezes his hand. “Fight, brother,” he says. And then the doors close.
I turn my attention to the paramedic in the back as the other runs to the driver’s side. Sirens roar to life. “I’m Dr. Kane,” I say. The paramedic, a dark-haired young woman, looks back at me with determination. “What’s your name?”
“Jessica,” she says.