Blood Ties

Chapter8-Meant to be dead

They should be telling me she's dead.

That's how this is supposed to go. A clean ending. A body found too late. Questions without answers. I did everything right — chose the place, the timing, the angle. I waited until she was alone. Vulnerable. Bleeding.

She was meant to die there.

Instead, my phone lights up with updates I didn't ask for, didn't want. Whispers filtering through places they shouldn't reach. Sirens. Paramedics. A hospital.

Alive.

The word sits wrong in my mouth.

I replay it again and again in my head — the way she collapsed, the way the knife went in, the way her body reacted exactly the way it should have. I didn't hesitate. I didn't miss.

And yet.

Someone found her.

Someone cared enough to stop. To touch. To call for help instead of stepping over her like she deserved.

That part burns more than the failure.

She wasn't supposed to matter to anyone. Not like that. She was meant to disappear quietly, the way she always had. The way she was taught to.

But there he is.

I don't know his name yet, but I know his face. I've seen it already — too close, too intent, hovering where mine should have been. Hands on her. Voice low and urgent, like she belongs to him.

It makes something ugly twist in my chest.

He shouldn't get to care.

He shouldn't get to look at her like she's worth saving.

I was so close.

Close enough to feel it — that moment where everything would finally be balanced. Where I would take what I came for and leave her empty behind me. Where the ache that's lived in me for years would finally quiet.

Her heart was right there.

Not just the organ — the thing she keeps locked away, the thing she's never learned how to give properly. I was supposed to be the last person to touch it. To take it with me. To prove that nothing good ever really belonged to her in the first place.

Instead, she's breathing.

Instead, there are machines doing the work I wanted finished. People standing guard. Lights on in places that should be dark.

They're protecting her.

The thought sharpens into something cold and focused.

This isn't over.

I didn't wait this long to stop halfway. I didn't sacrifice what I did just to leave her unfinished. She's survived things before — I know that better than anyone — but surviving isn't the same as winning.

If she wakes up, she'll remember.

If she remembers, she'll talk.

And if she talks, things unravel.

I won't let that happen.

Not when I was so close.

Not when her heart is still beating — still mine to claim.