When There Is Nothing Left But Love

He picked up the bottle of sulfuric acid, slowly swivelling his head to face me. An eyebrow raised, he asked in an annoyed tone, “Want me to do it for you?”

My face scrunched up out of fear, instinctively taking a step back and increasing the distance between us. “Jared, listen. There’s still a way out for you if you stop now.”

His lips pulled back in an ugly sneer. “Scared, Scarlett?”

No sh*t, Sherlock. Anyone would be.

He took slow, lazy steps towards me, and I unconsciously kept backing away from him. “Jared, you can’t bring back people from the dead, but you can still treasure the living while they’re still alive,” I tried to convince him.

He merely jeered at me, refusing to listen to anything I said as he twisted open the bottle cap.

Waving the bottle in the air menacingly, he went on to say, “You look so much like Naomi right now. She was this scared and vulnerable when she died, too. I remember thinking: she must have wanted to continue living, but she couldn’t find a good reason to do so anymore. Why couldn’t I have been her reason? Why couldn’t she have continued living for me?”

I felt my back hit a wall. I’m cornered.

Delighted by my new predicament, a wide grin spread across his face as he splashed the contents of the bottle in my direction.

I reflexively reached up and tried to cover my face with my hands, but only managed to block some of the liquid.

someone’s embrace at the exact moment that I heard the blood-curdling sound of something dissolving, as well as

as a group of people suddenly

realized that it was Ashton. He’d used his own

could somewhat see that all the blood was drained from Jared’s face as he stared at Ashton, dumbfounded while

my mouth to speak, but no words came

to his knees in front of me. There was a constant ringing in my brain as I stood there blankly,

as they moved around me. It was only then that my brain finally registered that my face hurt slightly, and I realized that the sulfuric acid must have burnt some

you don’t have to worry about blindness,” a doctor told me

while. I now knew that my face and right eye hadn’t managed to escape Jared’s fury

why didn’t I feel any pain at all in the beginning? Maybe it all happened too fast that my brain

a nurse came in to help with my IV injection. After pressing lightly all over my

my hand and

turned away, refusing to watch her actually push the needle into my flesh. My pain tolerance had always been

nurse helpfully supplied

relief, all the muscles in my body relaxing. The spot on the back of my left hand where the IV needle had pierced hurt slightly, and

but ask, “Did you accidentally pick the wrong vein? It looks like the

that connected the IV needle to the drip bag was indeed starting

shoulder at me and did a double take. When she tried to pull