Page 69 of Born Chaos

“How did you do it?” Sebastian fires his own unanswered questions right back. “How is he not dead?”

“Because karma still needs me to take you out,” Roman sneers, and that chisel flies through the air.

It strikes Sebastian in the chest, and I hear a sickening crunch, immediately followed by a roar of pain.

“The entire city of Chicago will be after your head,” Roman sneers as I stand there in shock, realizing there’s essentially a stake in the chest of the man I once loved. Just how close is it to his heart?

“Burn in hell,” Sebastian growls. And a scream rips past my lips as he takes one step backward and tips right out the window.

“Sebastian!” I scream as I trip over my uncoordinated, half woken feet to the window.

But I watch as he hits the ground, landing on his feet. He staggers slightly, obviously seriously injured, before he takes off into the night, disappearing in a wink.

I heft myself into the window frame. I can barely see anything in the blinding light. But I have to drag him back. I have to get him to tell me how to fix this.

But as I try to lift a leg to jump out after him, pain lances through my chest, and I collapse to the ground, broken glass digging into my palms.

“Juliet!” Roman cries. And maybe he’s not fully okay either because he drags himself along the ground toward me.

“He ran,” I confirm, my chest heaving as I breathe hard. “Not dead, he ran.”

“We’ll catch him,” Roman says. He drags himself up onto his knees. His eyes search me, landing on my chest. “What the hell just happened?”

I look down at my own chest now that I have two seconds to breathe. There’s no evidence of a hole in my chest, but there’s a trail of blood dripping down from the exact same spot where Roman was staked. “I… I don’t really know. I watched Sebastian stake you with that tool. Roman, I watched you drop to the ground, and you were definitely dead.”

“Sebastian didn’t stake you?” he asks, totally ignoring the impossibility of what I just said.

I shake my head. “Felt like it, though. I touched you and then…” I trail off, recalling the exact order of things. “I touched you, it felt likeIhad just been staked, and then you did this insane gasp and woke up. Then I was out. Dead. Just like all the other times.”

Those blue eyes of his stare at me intensely, his brows furrowed. “You touched me, and then instantly I woke up, and you died?”

I hesitate for a second, thinking back through it all once more. “Yeah, that’s exactly what happened.”

“And you’re sure I was dead?” he asks.

“Well, didn’t it feel like it?” I ask impatiently.

“I don’t know, Juliet, I’ve never died before,” he snaps back.

And maybe I’ve lost my mind a little bit, because a little laugh comes out. I slide my fingers up into my hair, knowing I look like an insane, crazed mess. “What is happening? How do things just keep getting worse and worse?”

Roman stares at me in silent concentration way too long for comfort. I can practically see the gears turning in his head.

“What?” I ask with dread.

“I think maybe we just discovered your gift,” he says, his voice low and quiet, as if he doesn’t want to be overheard.

“What do you mean?” I ask, even as cold fear drops down my spine.

“It would make sense, that your gift would evolve around your curse,” he continues. “Your mother cursed you that you couldn’t die. I think your gift is the ability to die for others.”

And my heart starts hammering. Something surges up inside of me, and it feels like adrenaline and realization and confirmation. And there’s this little voice in the back of my head that sounds a bit like my mother sayingit all lines up.

“That means… that means you really were dead,” I say, my voice trembling just a little bit. “And that you should have stayed dead.”

“And that I literally owe you my life this time,” Roman says, serious as the grave.

“You bet your ass you do,” I say, defaulting to sarcasm and deflection, because the whole situation is just a bit too heavy and serious. “I don’t know how you stayed alive in this city without me. This is, what, the third time I’ve saved you?”

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