Chapter 267

Cailin ripped the IV line from her arm, blood spraying across the pristine white sheets. She didn’t feel the needle tear through her vein. She didn’t feel the fresh stitches in her abdomen screaming in protest as she threw her legs over the side of the bed. The military-grade cocktail Kegan had given her was a devil’s bargain — it dulled the agony to a distant, throbbing fire, but did nothing to stop the physical damage she was inflicting on herself. She knew she was tearing apart from the inside.

She only saw the blue hand. The tiny, lifeless blue hand dangling from Hilliard’s jacket as he ran past her door.

“You killed her!”

She hit the floor hard, her knees buckling, but adrenaline — pure, toxic, maternal adrenaline — forced her back up. She dragged herself into the hallway, a searing pain shooting from her incision with every inch, leaving a trail of red droplets on the linoleum.

Hilliard had already disappeared behind the swinging doors of the trauma unit.

“Let me through!” Cailin shrieked, clawing at the nurse who moved to block her path.

“Mrs. Holloway, you’re bleeding — you need to lie down—”

Cailin shoved the woman. It was a weak shove, but the desperation behind it was terrifying. She stumbled toward the trauma room doors just as Hilliard emerged from the other side.

He wasn’t holding Elia anymore. His hands were empty. His shirt was a map of blood and melted frost.

Cailin collided with him. She didn’t hug him. She attacked him.

Her fists hammered against his chest — weak, frantic blows that wouldn’t have bruised a peach — but she poured every ounce of her remaining strength into them.

“Where is she? What did you do to her?”

Hilliard didn’t defend himself. He didn’t catch her wrists. He simply wrapped his arms around her thrashing body and pulled her into him, absorbing every blow.

“She’s with the doctors,” he said, his voice a broken rasp against her ear. “They’re warming her up. Her heart is beating, Cailin. It’s beating.”

“Liar!” Cailin screamed into his chest. “I saw her! She was blue! You let her die! You let that monster kill her!”

She couldn’t breathe. The pain in her stomach was a hot knife twisting with every movement, but the pain in her chest was worse.

She pulled back, her eyes wild and feral. She saw the pulse beating in Hilliard’s neck. The source of all her pain.

She lunged.

She sank her teeth into the muscle where his neck met his shoulder, biting down hard and tasting the salt of his sweat and the metallic sting of copper as her teeth broke the skin.

Hilliard grunted — a low, pained sound — but he didn’t push her away. He held her tighter. He took it. He stood there like an anchor in the storm of her grief, letting her mark him, letting her tear him apart, because he knew without question that he deserved it. He deserved every shred of this.

“Sedative!” a doctor shouted from behind them. “She’s going into shock — BP is crashing!”

Cailin felt the prick of a needle in her thigh.

No. She couldn’t sleep. She had to save Elia.

“Don’t…” she mumbled, her jaw slackening. Her teeth released Hilliard’s shoulder. A bloom of red spread across the white collar of his shirt.

“I’ve got you,” Hilliard whispered, lifting her as her legs gave out entirely. “I’ve got you both.”