Page 93 of Twisted Steel

“Don’t do this because of him.”

“I’m doing this because of me.”

He steps closer, then stops himself before I can retreat, and the restraint nearly shatters me.

“Tell me what you need,” he says.

I laugh again, and this time it sounds ruined.“Peace.”

The word hangs between us like something neither of us knows how to touch.Steel looks at me like I’ve asked him to cut out his own heart, and maybe I have.

“I don’t have that,” he says.

“I know.”

The ambulance sirens rise in the distance.Tyler groans, Mama M calls for pressure, and Raven rips fabric from someone’s discarded shirt and wraps it around her own arm with her teeth like a fucking lunatic.The club starts moving again because blood doesn’t wait for heartbreak to finish.

I wipe my hands on my jeans and step back.Steel watches me like every inch is a mile.

“I need to go to the hospital with Tyler,” I say.

“I’ll come.”

“No.”His jaw flexes.“I need you not to come.”

Silence envelops us for a moment before Savage steps forward quietly.“I’ll send Saint.”

Steel doesn’t look at him.“You’re leaving me,” he says.

The words are flat, and my throat closes.“I’m trying to survive.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

For a moment, I think he’ll argue.That he’ll become the man everyone fears and refuse to let me walk away.But he doesn’t.He just stands there, bleeding and silent, and lets me choose, and that’s the cruelest mercy.

Raven comes to my side as the ambulance pulls into the yard.Her arm is still bleeding.Her eyes are too knowing.

“You sure?”she asks.

“No.”

“Good.Honest is better than brave.”

“I don’t feel brave.”

“You’re not supposed to.”Her gaze flicks to Steel.“You’re supposed to be free enough to leave when staying feels like drowning.”

My eyes burn.“Does it get easier?”I whisper.

Raven’s mouth twists.“No.You just get better at knowing which pain belongs to you.”

That’s a terrible answer, but it might also be the only useful one.

The EMTs rush in, and I snap back into motion because I know how to function in crisis better than I know how to exist in love or heartbreak.

Love.