Page 111 of Bound By Blood and Lies

Everything isfine.

I stopped the bleeding.

I saved her.

More hands grab at me, and they are stronger this time. They don’t hesitate. They clearly don’t understand. They can’t feel what I feel. The hands start pulling me away, prying at my arms,forcing space between me and Fi, and panic explodes through me as I thrash against them.

“No!” I scream, and the sound tears out of me as my fingers slip against her, finally losing their hold. “No, stop! Stop! I need to hold her! She’s bleeding?—”

“She’s gone,” someone says in a soft but clinical voice that fractures something inside me violently.

“No,” I choke, shaking my head hard as tears blur everything else around me. The water starts turning thicker and heavier. It feels impossible to see through.

“No, she’s not. She’s—she’s right here?—”

The hands pull harder.

And mine lose her completely.

“No!” I scream, reaching for her again. My fingers grasp at the air, at nothing, at the space where she was just seconds ago. “Give her back to me! Please! Please!”

My body fights them, but it’s useless. There are too many hands, too much strength dragging me back, away from her, away from the only thing keeping me anchored to anything real.

“She needs to be checked. She went down at some point,” another voice says. “She’s pregnant?—”

Pregnant.

The word cuts through the fog and I gasp.

My hand flies to my stomach and my breath catches violently as even more fear crashes in all at once, replacing the numbness, the water, the distance.

The baby.

“I…” My voice shakes as my eyes drop to my stomach and panic twists through me. “I didn’t… I didn’t protect…”

Guilt slams into me so hard I collapse into the arms of whoever is holding me. It’s heavy and suffocating. This is my fault. I let us go here. I let him disarm me. I lied to Roman.

“Fae.”

Roman.

His hands come up to my face, forcing me to look at him, and this time I do. His beautiful brown eyes, that are usually so full of love for me, look completely broken and haunted. A pain lances through my chest because I’ve never seen him like that.

Is the baby okay? Is Fiona okay?

“You’re okay,” he says, even though his voice isn’t steady. “Do you hear me? You’re okay.”

I shake my head immediately, tears spilling freely down my face. “No… no, I’m not, I?—”

“You are,” he says, firmer this time. “And the baby is going to be okay. Let them check you. Mum wants the baby to be okay…”

I nod.

I can do that.

For a moment, I feel calm. Then I realise they are pulling me away, further and further away from Fiona, so I try to turn to go back to her, but they lower me down onto something. A voice moves around me as the world slowly drags me back toward the surface.

I don’t want to be at the surface.