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.

moment that I heard the blood-curdling sound of something dissolving, as

into my ear in pain as a group

daze, I realized that it was Ashton. He’d used his own body

the blood was drained from Jared’s face as he stared at Ashton,

my mouth to speak, but

ringing in my brain

the doctors and nurses as they moved around me. It was only then that my brain finally registered that my face hurt slightly, and

isn’t damaged, so you don’t have to worry about blindness,” a doctor told me as he bandaged up

a while. I now knew that my face and right eye hadn’t managed to

any pain at all in the beginning? Maybe it all happened too fast that my

came in to help with my IV injection. After pressing lightly all over my hand and not finding any prominent veins, she glanced up at

did as I was told. She carefully inspected the back of my hand and then picked up

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

done,” the nurse helpfully

I sigh in relief, all the muscles in my body relaxing. The spot on the back of my left hand

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

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

at me and did a double take. When she tried to pull out the IV needle, tiny drops of blood spurted