Page 149 of Yours to Keep
“You think he loves you?” he spits. “He’s mine!” He snaps his head toward me.
We are close enough now to see it clearly: the obsession, the fracture behind his eyes.
“Not anymore,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It’s colder than I expect.
“He came back to me,” Adrian says, his smile twitching like it’s barely holding together.
“No.”
Deck and I close in further. He hangs back just enough to cover me as I take another step forward.
“He chose Finn.”
That lands differently, and something shifts in Adrian’s face. Just for a second. Uncertainty cracks through the obsession, because the truth is finally reaching him: Eli never chose him. Not once. He chose to save Finn.
The fantasy Adrian has built his entire life around starts to collapse in real time.
“He belongs to me,” Adrian says again, harder now.
“No.”
Another step.
“He belongs to me!” he shouts. His grip tightens, then falters. The arm holding the gun dips slightly.
Another step.
“No,” I say again. “He chose me. He’s mine.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. It’s not meant to show ownership or possession. It is said as a promise to Eli that nobody takes him again. I just hope he is still with me enough to hear it.
Adrian snaps the gun back toward Eli’s head.
I fire.
The shot hits.
He drops.
For a second, the world goes completely still. No sound or movement. Just the aftermath hanging in the air like it doesn’t know where to land.
Then I’m moving, straight to Eli.
I drop beside him and catch him as he collapses into me. I turn him away from Adrian’s body, shielding him without thinking. Deck drops beside us a second later, wrapping himself around both of us like a barrier.
I hold Eli so tightly I’m afraid he’ll disappear if I loosen my grip. I breathe him in, like I can pull him back into himself.
He’s shaking. So am I; so is Deck.
Deck stays close, his forehead resting briefly against Eli’s shoulder, a steady presence, a shield.
“Eli…”
He feels cold in my arms. Too small. Too fragile. The desperation in his grip shatters me. He’s clinging like I’m the last solid thing left in this world.
“Baby Boy,” I whisper.
His eyes find mine, and everything he’s been holding back breaks across his face at once. Fear. Pain. Relief that hurts more than it heals.
