Chapter 27: Blood and Ashes
"No, no, no—Callum!" I dropped to my knees beside him, my hands fumbling uselessly to stop the bleeding, to do something, but it was pouring out too fast.
Too much.
He looked at me, dazed, eyes glassy, lips trembling.
"I—I’m okay," he whispered, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay.
Selene stood above us, her hand dripping with Callum’s blood, a wild look in her eyes.
And I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Everything was happening too fast, too violently, too brutally, it didn’t feel real.
One moment, we were standing together, a wall of the beaten and broken, daring to raise our voices. The next, the world collapsed into chaos.
My scream tore through the air. I hadn’t even seen Selene move, one blink, and Callum was now on the ground, blood gushing from where his arm used to be. The sickening sound of bone snapping and flesh tearing haunted the space around us, but I didn’t hear anything else. My knees buckled under me as I had dropped beside him.
"Keep your eyes open, Callum! Stay with me!" I cried, pressing my hands against the open wound, but there was too much blood. Too much. It painted my hands, my arms, the concrete beneath him.