Chapter 15: RESCUE

***DAMIAN***

The darkness in my mind was all that remained. A heavy veil that covered my thoughts and swallowed every logic, every clear thought. The room was filled with a stifling silence, broken only by the soft drip of her blood falling from the bed onto the floor. Every drop sounded like a hammer blow to my skull, pounding inside me like a taunt – as if time were slipping away from me, second by second, drop by drop.

Celine lay there, pale as a shroud, her lips colorless, her cheeks sunken. Her chest rose and fell barely noticeably, as if her body were only breathing out of habit. I held her tight, my fingers cramped around her shoulders, as if my grip alone could bring her back. But there was nothing. No warmth. No sound. No life.

“Say something...” I whispered, but my voice was a pathetic reflection of my inner panic. She didn’t move. Her head leaned limply against my chest, her eyes closed, as if she had already decided to leave me and this world behind.

Something inside of me broke. It wasn’t quiet or gentle. It was like a storm that rushed through my body with force, sweeping everything along with it. My hands trembled as I carefully lifted her up. Her blood – warm, dark red – was on my arms, on my hands, on my clothes. The metallic smell filled my lungs, and for a moment I thought I would suffocate. But I didn’t. Instead, it burned in my chest as if every breath was a fight against an invisible force that wanted to hold me back.

The stairs creaked under my weight as I carried her. Every step felt like an eternity. Her body was so still in my arms, so light, as if life had already left her. The thought shot through my skull like a knife, cutting deep and leaving a burning wound that I couldn’t ignore.

When I got to her room, I laid her on the bed. The white sheet immediately absorbed the blood, a macabre contrast that almost made me gag. “I have to take care of these wounds...” The words were hollow, as if they came from someone else. My hands moved automatically, searching for the first-aid kit in the bathroom, grabbing bandages, alcohol, anything I could find. But my thoughts were a mess, an incessant drone of guilt and despair.

I returned to her, sat down beside her and started working. Every cut I cleaned seemed deeper than the last. Her torso was a battlefield, a canvas of pain and blood that I couldn’t fix. Damn it, I wasn’t a doctor. I had no idea what I was doing. But I couldn’t just watch. Couldn’t let her slip away from me.

My hands were unsteady, but I forced them to continue. I wrapped the bandages around her delicate body, pulling them tight, but the blood seeped through. It was too much. Despair flared up inside me, hot and burning. My breathing grew heavier, my fingers clung to the edges of the bed as if I needed to hold on to something that didn’t exist.

“Celine... please,” I whispered, but there was no reply. No twitching of her eyelids, no soft muttering. Nothing. My teeth were grinding as I lost my composure. “Damn it, do something! Hate me, hit me, yell at me – anything! But don’t let me sit in this fucking silence!” My voice echoed off the walls, breaking at the silent presence of her lifeless body.

I dropped to my knees beside her, head buried in my hands. My heart pounded, an irregular, painful rhythm that threw itself against my chest like a hammer. My head burned, every memory of her another blow. Her laughter, her anger, her pride – all faded before the image that now lay before me.

I raised my head and stared at her, my eyes full of tears that I didn’t feel. “You can’t leave me,” I whispered, my voice rough and broken. “Not like this. Not now.” But she didn’t move. She remained still, trapped in a state between life and death, and I didn’t know how to bring her back.

Something dark crept up inside me, a cold, sharp anger that mixed with guilt. It was my fault. Mine. And yet it felt like the world itself was mocking me. Like a mocking echo whispering that I wasn’t strong enough to save her.

But I wouldn’t give up on her. Not now. Not ever.

The silence in the house was a beast that threatened to devour me. Every second I didn’t do something felt like another dagger piercing my flesh. **Celine was bleeding to death.** My breathing was shallow, my chest tight, as if an invisible weight was crushing me. There was no time for doubt, no time for hesitation – and no time for pride. **I needed Jax.**

My legs moved on their own, leading me down the creaking stairs, while my thoughts raged like a dark storm. The metallic smell of blood clung to my hands, to my clothes, in my nose. It haunted me, as if it wanted to make every breath a torture. My fingers clutched the phone on the kitchen counter, while my gaze stared at the display. His number. **Jax.**

It rang again. My breathing quickened, my fingers clutched the phone so tightly that the knuckles turned white. I wanted to scream at him, wanted to force him to finally pick up. But the seconds dragged on painfully, like a veil of endless torture.

Then I heard it – the click. His voice came through the line, unchanged, so familiar and yet so hateful.

“Damian.” His words were cutting and cold, carried by a mockery that threatened to tear apart my already fragile control. ”Are you looking for your stepsister again?”

My pulse quickened, my jaws clenched so tightly that I thought they might burst. **How dare he?**

“Jax... Celine...” My voice was hoarse, my words wavering between anger and despair. ”You have to come. Quickly!”

He laughed. A quiet, cold laugh that crept through the line like a poison that soaked through my blood. “Are you kidding me, Damian? I should come to you? And then you slaughter me with your gang brothers? How stupid do you think I am, hmm?”

I slammed my free hand down on the table, the sound echoing through the kitchen, but it wasn’t enough to dampen the rage inside me. “Goddamn it, Jax!” My voice was a hoarse growl, the anger burning inside me like a blazing fire. “Celine is lying upstairs in her room bleeding to death!”

His answer didn’t come immediately. For seconds, there was only silence. The kind of silence that made you feel like the world could stop spinning at any moment. I heard his breathing through the line, heavy and thoughtful. And then came his voice, muffled, but with a harshness that squeezed the air out of my lungs.

“What did you do, Damian?”

The words cut deeper than I cared to admit. I felt my chest constrict, a claustrophobic sensation that crushed me. **What had I done?** But I couldn’t lose myself in guilt now. Celine had no time for that.

“Please, Jax,” I whispered, and this time my voice was only a shadow of itself. ’She needs you. Just come here. Do it for her.”

His hesitation was an agony that pierced my skin like a thousand needles. But finally, finally, came his answer: ’Okay. I’ll be right there.”

The call ended abruptly. The monotonous hum of the interrupted connection rang in my ears as I let the phone drop. My hand remained on the table, bloodied and shaking, while my thoughts swirled in an unceasing vortex of memories, guilt and rage.

**Jax.** The name was like poison searing through my veins. The man who should have been my brother had become the symbol of my hatred. And yet I had called to him now, not for me, but for her. **Celine.**

Memories flooded my mind relentlessly. Images from the time when we were both still children, before the darkness entered our lives. Our father – **his father** – had always been good at destroying what was innocent. I was twelve.. Jax... was fifteen when the nightmares began. Twelve when I learned that monsters didn’t just exist in stories.

I remember the first night, the smell of alcohol that hit me when the door to my room opened. The shadow of his massive body was silhouetted against the weak moonlight that fell through the window. I had trembled, frozen as his heavy footsteps approached me. The coldness of his hands on my skin was like a curse that would mark me forever. The scars from his cigarettes, when I didn’t do what he wanted, marked my skin.

Jax was always there. Sometimes he stood in the doorway, his dark eyes fixed on me as I screamed and fought. But he didn’t do anything. Not a word, not a sound. He just watched.

“Jax, please... help me,” I had whispered one night when I caught him in the hallway. My voice was full of desperation, my hands trembled as I grabbed him by the arm. ”Please...”

But he just stood there, his expression blank. Then he broke free and left me behind – alone, in the dark.

Now the bitterness crept up on me again as I pushed myself off from the kitchen counter and walked through the house. Every step felt harder, every breath was like a fight.

I looked up at the stairs where Celine lay. The thought of her was the only thing that kept me from leaving the house and just running away. She was my anchor, my salvation. **My only family.**

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms until I felt the warm, sticky feeling of blood. But the pain was a welcome companion, a reminder that I was still here, that I had to fight – for her.

The minutes dragged on. I heard nothing but my own breathing . It was a sound that drove me mad. Time stretched until finally the sound of tires on gravel pulled me out of my state.

He was there.

My heartbeat quickened as I walked to the door. I knew that this wasn’t just about Celine. This was also a confrontation that was inevitable. Part of me wanted to yell at him, to call him to account for all those years of silence and coldness. But that would have to wait. **Right now it was about Celine. My Celine... his sister, who he never got to know... who knew nothing about him...**

Jax stepped over the doorstep and my eyes fell on the worn suitcase in his hand. It was no ordinary suitcase, I knew that immediately. Its worn edges, the faded leather grain – this thing had stories to tell. And Jax, with his impenetrable expression and cold, calculating eyes, matched this damn thing as if it were part of him.

He wasn’t a doctor. He had never managed that. But he had spent enough time studying to know things that made him dangerous. To some a savior, to others an executioner. And now he stood before me, in my house, carrying the case like a relic he had captured on some battlefield.

“Where is it?” he asked, without showing even the slightest hint of emotion. His voice was calm, too calm, as if this was just another day for him.

I closed the door behind him, my breathing shallow, my hands trembling with tension. ‘Upstairs,’ I replied curtly, the words coming out through a narrow valve, each one harder than the last.

He nodded, a short, jerky movement, then made his way to the stairs. I followed him, my thoughts a chaotic jumble. The steps of the two men we now were echoed in the narrow hallway, and for a moment I felt as if I were accompanying Jax back into the past. A past that I had cursed, that I wanted to bury – but it kept crawling back, especially now, at this moment, when he was the only one who could save it.