CHAPTER 51

Helena's pov

The phone buzzed again in my hand before I could even breathe.

I didn’t answer. I set it face-down on the tray table next to Maren’s photo. Jarett’s eyes tracked it.

“Don’t,” he said in a voice so raw, it sounded like he’d been screaming.

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m sitting here.”

The ICU room was too bright and too white.

The machines counting his heart like it might change its mind and stop. The black vein under his jaw hadn’t spread in the last hour.

There was a scarf still tied around his hand. The fabric was soaked through in one spot, brown where his blood had dried. It wasn’t enough to hold him together, nothing was, except maybe me sitting here.

The door opened and Dell came in first without any cuffs. The cop from the bridge stayed in the hallway, arms crossed.

“You can’t be in here,” I said, standing up.

“I can,” Dell said. “We're practically family.” He said it like a joke.

Jarett’s grip tightened on mine. “Get out.”

Dell looked at him, then at me. His suit was still wet from the rain. “You read it,” Dell said to me.

“I did.”

“And?”

“And I choose him,” I said. “Every time.”

Dell let out one short, ugly sound. “That’s not how it works, Helena. You don’t get to choose. The oath chooses. Blood chooses.”

He stepped closer to the bed. “You think pulling him out of that alley breaks it? The deal was made ten years ago. When Maren took the fall for us. When she went to that pack in Toronto and said it was her who killed that girl.”

Jarett made a sound in his throat. “Don’t say her name.”

“I have to,” Dell said. “Because she’s the reason you’re alive. She paid for you. And now she wants payment back.”

The monitors beeped faster. A nurse poked her head in. “Everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” I said quickly. “It's just family talk.”

She left, but not before giving Dell a look.

When the door shut, Dell lowered his voice.

“She’s been waiting in the city for three days,” he said. “She won’t come to the hospital. There are too many cameras here and too many cops. She wants you to come to her.”

“Where?”

“Take the bridge by midnight and bring the photo.”

I looked at Jarett. His face was pale, but his eyes were clear and angry.

“No,” he said. “She’s not going.”

“Yes I am,” I said.

“Helena—”

“You heard him. It's blood for blood. If I don’t go, they keep coming. If I do go, maybe it will end.”

Dell nodded, like I’d just passed a test. “Midnight. Don’t bring cops. Don’t bring your phone. Just you and the photo.”

He turned to leave.

“Dell,” Jarett said making Dell stop

“If she gets hurt—”

“She won’t,” Dell said. “Because you’re going to make sure she doesn’t.”

And then he was gone.

The room felt smaller after he left.

Jarett tried to sit up. I pressed a hand to his chest, gentle.

“Don’t,” I said.

“You can’t go alone.”

“I’m not alone. I have you.” I picked up the photo. Maren was still smiling on the front. On the back, Jarett’s handwriting was cut into the paper.

I traced the words with my thumb. “So this is all because you love me.”

“It’s all because I broke a promise,” he corrected. “And because Maren never forgives.”

We didn’t talk for a while. The rain tapped the window. At 11:30, the nurse came in to check vitals.

“You should rest,” she said to me.

“I will,” I lied.

At 11:45, I kissed Jarett’s knuckles through the scarf. “I’m coming back,” I whispered. “Don’t you dare flatline on me.”

He tried to smile again. “Make her bleed for you.”

I almost laughed. The cop from the hall walked me to the elevator.

“You sure you don’t want backup?” he asked.

“I’m sure,” I said. “If I bring you, she’ll run. And then it never ends.”

He didn’t look happy about it, but he let me go.

The city was slick and empty. The bridge lights made halos in the fog. The box was still there, knocked on its side. The puddle where the photo had been was empty now.

Maren was already there.

She looked exactly like the photo, except older and tired. Her hair was cut short. She wore a long black coat and no shoes like she’d walked here barefoot.

“You came,” she said.

“You knew I would.”

“I knew Jarett would make you.”

I held up the photo. “You want this?”

“I want what’s on the back,” she said. “I want him to keep his promise.”

My throat was dry. “He tried.”

“And then he met you,” Maren said. She tilted her head. “You’re not even pack. You’re human. You don’t know what you’re in.”

“I know he chose me,” I said. “And I choose him.”

Maren smiled. It was sad. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

She stepped forward. I stepped back.

“Dell said blood for blood,” I said. “So what now? You take me?”

“Or you take me,” Maren said. “That’s the other option. The oath gives you a choice. One of you has to die to pay for the other. That’s how it ends.”

The wind picked up. My phone was in my pocket. I’d lied to the cop. I hadn’t turned it off.

I thought of Jarett in that bed, the tubes in his arms and the black at his jaw and I made my choice.

I tore the photo in half.

Maren flinched. “What are you doing?”

“If blood pays for blood,” I said, “then let it be mine but not tonight and not like this.”