Chapter 187 186

Chapter 187 186
Xena looks from me to Nikolai and back again. Her finger shifts over the trigger. all the noise around me fades. Elise’s crying, Nikolai’s shouting, then it’s all gone, like someone turned the volume of the world down.

Everything goes quiet.

I close my eyes.

I wait.

The bang that ends my world is deafening. I feel the heat of the shot, the singe of gunpowder against my skin. And I wait for darkness to take me. For pain or a blinding light or the warm numbing sensation of death.

But there’s… nothing.

There’s nothing?

When I open my eyes, Xena isn’t in front of me anymore. She has turned away and is pointing her gun at—

“Nikolai!” His name tears out of my throat. I’m up and running towards his slumped figure before I can even worry whether Xena will shoot me, too.

What does it matter now anyway? By shooting Nikolai, she got me right in the heart.

I drop to my knees on the concrete next to him, barely feeling the pain of the stone biting into my skin because I’m too preoccupied by the puddle of sticky blood under me. It’s warm and pulsing out of him too fast.

“Soak it in, lovebirds,” Xena calls. “These are your last moments together.”

“Nikolai,” I gasp. My hands hover over his stomach, shaky and uncertain.

He’s flat on his back with his head turned towards me. His gray eyes are laser-focused on me. He grabs my hands and presses them against his wound, but I’m not sure if either of us believe it will do anything. Maybe it’s just to feel his heat one last time.

“You… you didn’t… lose…” he murmurs through lips that barely work.

I’ve never seen him like this, wounded. Incapacitated. I hate it. I can’t stand it, and it’s so overwhelming that I can’t focus on what he’s saying. “Nikolai, you—”

“Belle,” he rasps, grabbing my wrists. “Listen… listen to me. You didn’t lose the baby.”

I look up to his face. To his full lips and strong jaw. His skin is paler than I’ve ever seen it. “What did you—What? I didn’t?”

“I thought you did,” he explains haltingly. “The doctors messed—I told you that because I thought it was true. And because you said I only cared about the baby. But… I thought the baby was gone.”

That means something, but there’s too much information flying for me to cling to it. Nikolai is still talking, the words pouring out of him as fast as the blood.

“But the hospital called me right before you were taken. It was a mix-up. A clerical error. Do… do you understand?”

“Nikolai, you’re bleeding.” Tears are streaming down my face and it’s all I can think to say. What else can matter in the face of this?

He squeezes my wrists until they hurt. Until my fingers start to tingle. “You might still be pregnant. But it doesn’t matter, either way. I lied, Belle.”

I frown. “You lied about the baby? I don’t understand.”

“I lied back at the house. Before you fell down those stairs.” He lifts his head with visible effort and looks into my very soul. “I love you, Belle. I love you so much that, for the first time in my life, I was scared.”

My heart is being pulled in two different directions. It wants to crack in half at the sight of Nikolai bleeding out on the floor, but his words make it feel close to bursting.

This could be his last moment. Our last moment together. And as much as I want to hear these words from him, I don’t want it to be a lie.

I shake my head. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

“I mean it.” He pulls my bloody hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “I love you, beautiful Belle. ‘Til death do us part.”

My face is wet with tears as I bend down and kiss his lips. “I love you, too, Nikolai. You can’t go. You can’t die. I just got you.”

He shakes his head. “You’ve always had me, Belle. From the start.”

I hear Xena moving closer. Her heels click across the floor. We have a minute left together. Maybe less.

I sob, relief and heartbreak rattling through me. “This can’t be over, Nikolai. It can’t. What can I do? Tell me what to do and I’ll do it, I swear I will.”

Slowly, Nikolai drags my hand closer to his hip. His eyes are burning into mine, trying to relay something I don’t understand.

“I love you,” he says again.

Another sob starts to bubble up in me.

But then I feel it. The hard length in Nikolai’s pocket. The intricate handle poking out of his pocket.

It’s the knife Makar gave me on my wedding day.

Nikolai’s chin dips slightly, and I understand all at once what he wants me to do. What I have to do.

“I’m sorry.” His voice sounds weak, and I know all at once what he means. What he wants to say but can’t because Xena’s shoes are clicking closer every second.

I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I got you tangled up in this mess. I’m sorry you have to be the one to kill the person who did this to us.

I lay my body over his, carefully pulling the knife from his pocket and tucking it against my forearm and palm. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Nikolai. I don’t have a single regret.”

“Come on!” Xena screeches. “Get up. Goodbyes are over.”

I look at Nikolai again, hoping and praying it won’t be for the last time. He tips his head slowly, a silent encouragement, and then falls back against the floor. His lids flutter closed, and that’s all the encouragement I need. He doesn’t have much time.

“Up!” Xena yells again.

Slowly, I stand up with an exaggerated sob and back away from Nikolai. Xena is somewhere behind me, so I want to get as close to her as I can before I turn around. Before she sees my face and realizes I’m lying.

“Turn around,” she snaps. “I want to see you when I kill you.”

I bow my head, my shoulders shaking. It’s not so hard to fake. Seeing Nikolai quiet and still on the ground is terrifying. I’m worried he’ll never get up.

“No!” Elise moans from a few yards away. “Please. No.”

I don’t know if she’s talking about me or Howard, but it doesn’t matter. Not in this second.

Right now, the only thing that matters is not missing.

Xena groans in frustration. “Would you fucking turn around, you—”

She grabs my shoulder and spins me around. As I turn, I slide the knife down into my fingers, hook my right arm around, and slash out at her neck with all my strength.

Xena reacts quickly, raising her right arm to try and block the attack. Instead of cutting her throat open like I intended, I catch her on the forearm. The blade bites into her palm and the soft underside of her wrist. Blood sprays out like a mist.

She tries to get a hold of my arm, but my skin is slippery with blood—both hers and Nikolai’s—and she can’t keep hold of me.

“Let go!” Her shrieks sound like a trapped animal now.