Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Just like that, everything becomes blindingly clear.
I won’t lose him. I won’t let him die for me.
I won’t stand frozen while fate tries to erase him from my life again.
I scramble to my feet.
My hand finds the discarded knife near the fallen attacker.
I don’t think.
I fight.
I launch myself toward the masked man with a cry I don’t recognize, part terror, part fury, part memory coming back in one explosive realization:
I loved Ledger Riot Masters. And I still do.
I slam the blade toward the attacker’s arm. He jerks back. Riot lunges with me. And together, e knock the gun from the bastard’s hand.
It clatters across the concrete.
The man snarls, stepping back, recalculating, then flees through the emergency hatch he came from.
Riot surges after him. “No!” I shout. “Riot, don’t!”
He stops.
Turns.
Breathing hard. Bleeding. Shaking.
But alive.
And his eyes land on me like it hurts him to look.
“Kelly,” he rasps, voice breaking. “You remembered.”
I nod, tears streaming. “I remembered us.”
And he falls to his knees like his body can’t hold the weight of that truth.
Twenty-One
Ledger
I didn’t realize I was dead inside until I experienced life with her. I won’t lose her again.
I drop to my knees before I understand why. I hear the echo of the hatch slamming as the bastard escapes back into the storm. I hear the ring of spent shells rolling across concrete. I hear the generators kicking back on in hiccupped bursts.
But all of it is background noise.
Because she’s standing there shaking, crying, breathing hard, and thankfully alive.
Alive because she fought. Alive because she remembered. Alive because she ran toward me instead of away.
My hands shake so violently I have to curl them into fists just to stay upright.
“Ledger,” Kelly’s voice comes out soft, cracked at the edges. “Hey. Hey, look at me.”
I lift my head. She’s right in front of me, kneeling before I can stop her. With her hands reaching for my face like she’s desperate to touch me, like she has to check I’m real, check I didn’t disappear while she blinked.
Her palms land on my cheeks. I flinch. Not from pain, from relief. From the unbearable crash of everything I just came close to losing. I had a taste of life without her and I won’t survive going through it again.
“Don’t,” I choke out, voice shredded. “Don’t do that.”
She frowns, breath hitching. “Do what?”
“Run into a fight. Charge at danger. Get between me and a fucking gun.”
“You did,” she whispers.
“That’s different,” I growl.
“How?”
“Because I’m the one who’s supposed to bleed,” I snap louder than I mean to.
Her eyes widen. Tears fall. She pulls back like she’s been hit.
Fuck.
I drag both hands over my face, breath shaking as I try to reel myself in.
Then she says, voice trembling, “I remembered something.”
I freeze.
She leans closer, her forehead brushing mine, her hands sliding to cradle my jaw so I can’t look away.
“You told me,” she whispers, “that once you fall you don’t stop.”
My heart detonates inside my chest.
“I remember you,” she continues, voice breaking. “I remember us. Not everything. But enough to know I loved you. I know you loved me. Even without the words.”
I shake my head sharply, pain lancing through me. “Sunshine.”
She holds tighter. “Ledger. Don’t lie.”
My voice cracks. “I’m not lying.”
Terrified. Exposed. Split open by her memory and her tears and her voice saying loved, past tense, like I’m something she survived.
“I tried not to,” I force out, every syllable scraping against my throat. “I tried not to fall for you.”
Her breath shivers. “Why?”
“Because look at you.” I run a trembling hand down her arm. “You’re light. And warmth. And comfort. And sweetness. And hope. You’re all the good and easy in life and baby, I’m a mess inside.”
Her lashes lower, tears slipping down her cheeks.
My voice drops to a brutal whisper. “I’m violence. I’m danger. I’m darkness. I didn’t want my world to damper your light.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t get to decide that alone.”
“I had to.” I swallow hard. “Because the second I let myself feel something real, the second I admitted what you were to me, you got hurt.”
A broken exhale leaves her lungs. “Riot.”
“I can’t do it again,” I rasp. “I can’t lose you again. Not to a truck. Not to a man with a mask. Not to a damn memory loss. Not to my mistakes.”
Her hands tremble against my skin. I breathe her in, all the fear, adrenaline, tears, and the feelings of survival wrapped in someone I never should’ve touched but did anyway.
“Look at me,” she whispers.
I do.
“I didn’t remember you this morning.” Her voice breaks but she keeps going. “But my body did.”
My lungs burn.
“My heart did.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“And now my mind is catching up,” she says. “Piece by piece. And none of the memories coming back make me want to run from you.”
“Kelly,” I warn.
“No,” she says firmly, cupping my face, dragging my gaze back to hers. “You protect me. You ground me. You fight for me. You hold me like I’m not breakable, but still cherished.”