I don’t feel any pain.
I don’t feel much of anything as I fall to the floor, blood and bone exploding in the air, and a strange whooshing noise rushing in my ears.
A dead weight.
That’s my passing thought as black spots blur my vision, and the light begins to dim.
The Deana-dhe were right after all…
Here I am paying the highest price and I didn’t even get to save her.
I promised her.
I made a vow far more sacred than that of marriage.
I vowed to protect her.
My heart.
Our lucky penny.
My soulmate.
Kid.
Screaming.
She’s screaming.
Gunshots.
More of them.
Outside.
Bang. Bang. BANG.
Shouting.
Voices mingle, sound shatters my thoughts.
Someone is dragging me across the floor. Crying and tugging and dragging and I can’t help.
I can’t help.
My eyelids are so heavy. So, so heavy.
Light flickers above me.
A face bathed in sunlight.
It’s so bright. So pure. My heart. It’s her.
“Kid?”
“Dax, stay with me!” she begs, leaning over me.
Panic is the only emotion she wears now.
Blind panic.
Her fingers run over my face. Her lips press against mine.
“Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me,” she chants over and over and over again.
“Run!” I shout, but it comes out as a whimper.
It’s a boy’s voice. A child. I’m that child again. A boy, helpless. Unable to stop the pain. Unable to move, to fight back. Useless.
Something tugs at my arm. Something tight wraps around my bicep. Pulling. Tighter. So tight that I feel it.
Throbbing. Blinding pain.
I try to flex my fingers.
Nothing but pain.
Pain. So much pain.
I want to be sick.
But even that seems like a monumental effort.
Her fingers grip my jaw as she forces me to look at her.
“Open your eyes goddamn it! Hold on. They’re here! Hold on!”
Bang. Bang BANG!
A voice shouts.
Someone familiar.
Someone I love.
Xeno?
“Hold on!” she screams, tears and breath and love and fear falling like rain over my face. “They’re here. Hold on!”
I blink back the fog. I focus on her. My light. My love. Our lucky penny. Kid.
I will not die tonight.
I refuse.
More pain rushes in, almost knocking me out. I will myself awake.
Sleep is too easy, and I’ve never, not once, taken the easy route.
For her. For them. My brothers.
There’s no dying tonight.
“Stay the fuck away from us!” she shouts, her head snapping up as she stands, stepping over me.
My girl. So strong. So brave.
I turn my head to the side.
He’s standing there.
Him.
Her fucking monster.
I was supposed to slay him.
That was my job and I failed.
He grabs her, and she fights, the world behind her a blur of noise and violence, and blood.
Rivers of it.
He can’t have her. He can’t.
I feel a burning inside my chest. My heart fucking sets alight right behind my dark angel tattoo that I had inked into my chest for her.
It rages, my heart. It refuses to let him take her.
I flip onto my stomach pushing up on my hands.
Hand…
Where’s my other fucking hand?
I see a bloody, tattered stump where my forearm should be. A white, jagged bone, sharp like a knife, pokes out of the sinews of tendons and muscles hanging in strands. A leather belt is pulled tight around my bicep. Blood drips but not pours.
Fuck.
Bile rises, I swallow it down.
Black spots float in my periphery. I ignore them.
No.
She needs me.
Kid screams, but it’s not a scream of fear. It’s a motherfucking war cry. She’s done. Enough is enough. I hear her intent over every other noise in this room.
She’ll kill David, or die trying.
Kid!
My head lifts up as I see him drag her across the room, but she fights.
My God, she fights.
Everything I taught her, she uses.
She’s a warrior.
Claws, teeth, fists, elbows, feet, knees. She uses her body, and she motherfucking fights.
That’s what I have to do.
Fight.
Around her, men battle. Inside the room. Outside of it. I see a flash of white-blonde hair.
York.
He’s coming to help.
That’s when I hear it. Audacity by Stormzy. It plays in my head, and I don’t know if I’m having an auditory hallucination, or it really is playing out whilst the battle rages.
Either way, I don’t care. I embrace the anger and the rage in the song. Absorb it. Use it.
The fucking audacity of David.
Pushing up on my good arm, I brace myself. Willing myself to push harder, using every ounce of strength I have left. I can’t let her down. I won’t.
He grips her by the hair and tugs, she flies back onto her arse, legs flailing, fingernails scratching at his forearms. Nausea rises, my head drops between my shoulders as I sway on my hand and knees.
Kid screams. Ear-shattering, heart-breaking.
I breathe in deeply through my nose.
Motherfucking cunt.
I’m going to kill the bastard. I’ll wrap my hand around his throat and squeeze. I’ll do it with a smile on my face and peace in my heart. I’ll watch with glee as the blood vessels pop in his eyes, as they bulge out of his motherfucking head. I’ll absorb his oxygen like some soul-sucking monster and enjoy every last fucking breath.
He dares to come after my brothers?
He dares to threaten the girl I love?
He dares to taunt her with messages that have twisted her up inside?
He doesn’t get to fuck with her, with us.
He will die.
Snapping my head up, my fingers curl into my palm. My muscles tense with adrenalin. My heart fucking kickstarts into a higher gear as I will myself to get to my feet.
Xeno was right when he said that violence was brewing inside of me.
I feel it now. It’s an inferno, burning me up from the inside out. I’ve felt it smouldering inside my chest ever since Frederico had a knife pressed against Kid’s throat. Wait, who am I trying to fucking kid? It was ignited ever since the moment I allowed the only girl I’ve ever loved back into my heart. It’s grown in size since I held her in my arms and fucking loved her with every part of my tainted, broken soul. Loving us has put Kid in danger and that knowledge has fuelled the fire inside. My need to protect her spreads like liquid heat inside my veins with every passing day. I made a promise to her as a kid, and I will not break it. Not now, not ever.
We sealed that promise with a kiss, her first kiss, one that scorched away all kisses that came before that point until they were nothing but dust. I had known in that moment, when she’d looked up at me with flushed cheeks and love in her eyes, and asked me if I’d always protect her, that I would. That I would die to protect her. She was always my hope, my home, and I was always her dark angel.
So, you see, it doesn’t matter that I’m bleeding out.
It doesn’t matter that my skin is pale, and my heart is fighting to keep me alive.
It doesn’t matter that Xeno is roaring at me to stay the fuck down, or York is beating a man to a pulp to get to me. It doesn’t matter that Zayn is cutting through more men to do the same, his knife glinting in the light, blood dripping from the blade.
All that matters right now in this fucking moment is Kid. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I will kill that cunt David. I will set her free of the cage he’s inflicted on her soul.
That’s my final vow as I push myself up off the floor and stagger towards him.
“No fucking more!” I roar.
I stumble towards her. Focused.
She sees me. She screams for me to stop.
I don’t.
This is it.
This is my last gift.
I’m going to save her from that bastard before I leave this world for good.
Forcing myself to move. Forcing my heavy limbs to hold me steady. Forcing my heart to keep beating through sheer fucking will. I move towards her.
Tears pour down her face as David yanks her up against his chest.
And right before my eyes, my girl, my fucking beautiful Kid shifts her hips to the side, elbowing him in the diaphragm just like I taught her.
He’s winded.
I take another step on heavy, heavy legs.
She doesn’t stop there.
She ducks out of his loosened arms, pulls out a flick knife from her back pocket, snaps her wrist, releases the blade then ducks under his arm and slams it into his armpit. The scream that rips out of her mouth is one of fury and hate, rage and violence as she yanks it free.
I drop to my knees a few feet away, a weak cry escaping my lips.
David stumbles, but she doesn’t stop. Instead, she shoves him to the side and crouches low, slicing the back of his knee.
He screams.
My breath is heavy as I pant. I’m fading fast.
I blink away the darkness. I need to see it. I need to see her safe.
With absolute fury, Kid kicks David to his knees then lifts the blade and rams it into the base of his skull, and in that moment as death comes to claim me, Kid slays her motherfucking monster.
