Page 180 of Wallflower

Ripley clings to Bucky, whose grip is unwavering despite the struggle tremoring through his arms.

Chelsea watches on from the side, sitting on the bloody floor against the cabinets. Her knees are pulled up, arms wrapped around her red stained legs, eyes vacant—borderline catatonic. Just as she was when Brad was finished with her. The sight breaks my failing heart.

Moving around the room, I step over Karson’s body. What’s left of his face is swollen and missing skin. There’s a tube protruding from his throat. Chelsea’s emergency attempt at keeping him alive with an on-site tracheotomy snuffed out by the bullet that splattered his brains across the dark grey stone.

I wonder if he would’ve lived had he not shot me.

“Clear!” the doctor shouts before pressing the paddles to my chest. My spiritless body doesn’t respond. The man immediately starts CPR as Rip roars my name from the corner Bucky’s corralled him into.

I cross the remaining distance, coming up beside him. There’s no way he can see me, but with the way his breath hitches, body stilling, I wonder if he can sense me.

Time passes, jolts shooting through my body, and still I don’t wake, don’t leave this limbo between existing and not.

I take my remaining moments to memorize the contours of his chiseled face. The scar beneath his chin, the Cupid’s bow, the myriad of colours in his dark eyes when the light hits them just right.

The doctor drops her tired arms. “Call it,” she says to no one in particular.

“No!” Ripley bellows. He unleashes himself, shoving Bucky like a leaf in the breeze. He pulls my gun from his friend’s waistband when he hits the floor, pointing it at my sister.

Fear grips me, though part of me knew this was inevitable.

“Please, don’t. You’re better than this,” I whisper to only myself, no one can hear me.

Ripley swings the glock from Chelsea to the doctor. “Again,” he growls, voice cracking, tears breaking free. “Go again.”

She raises her hands. “It’s been too long, Mr. Morgan.”

“I don’t fucking care, Phoebe! Again!”

“Very well,” she says, prepping me for another zap. “Clear!” she calls out, and the paramedic who was frozen in fear lifts his hands from my torso.

I feel the current as it travels through me, the sensation not at all enjoyable.

“Another two minutes, Harvey,” she says quietly to the man who has to be exhausted from chest compressions.

Swinging the gun on my sister, a snarl contorts Ripley’s handsome face. His foot connects with her shoulder, knocking her into Karson’s stiffening leg. “This is your fucking fault.”

“Do it,” she says, voice hollow, eyes looking but not seeing. “You can’t possible hate m?—”

Bang!

He doesn’t hesitate. Not a single moment passes where he second guesses the curling of his finger on the trigger.

I wail an unheard woeful sob as Chelsea crumples to a dying heap next to her lover, a steady flow of crimson running from the hole in her neck transecting the carotid artery.

Bucky looks on in shock, a string of stutters falling from his lips as he loses the ability to form words.

I watch as the strongest man I’ve ever known paces through bloody puddles. With each passing second a tether to his sanity snaps. He’s dropping down into a cavern where nothing and no one can reach him. “Come on, flower. Come back to me. I know you want to. I can fuckingfeelyou.”

That’s impossible.

Isn’t it?

A tug in my gut pulls my attention away from Ripley. Deep down, I know I’m fading. Maybe this is the last line to my corporeal form holding strong, letting me know it’s now or never.

Time to decide.

Do I stay?