Page 54 of It Must Be Fate

My voice is crazed.

Demented.

Unrecognizable to my own ears as I scream over and over and over again.

“Please, wild girl, you have to wake up. This isn’t funny anymore. Wake up for me.PLEASE.”

“Get him out of here!” Doctor Miller shouts.

Hands come to my shoulders. I don’t know who they belong to, but I shake them off.

“Get off me!” I snarl, my voice twisted ugly by raw fear.

I reach for Six again but the hands come back on me, more insistent this time.

They’re trying to keep Six from me.

To take her away from me.

“Get the fuck off me,” I roar. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

I turn around and punch blindly at whoever is trying to get between me and my wife. My sanity is gone, all rational thought absent. All that’s left is the animal, primal part of my brain that seeks to protect my wife.

“Baby…” I call, my voice thick with unshed tears. “Please, baby.” I cup her face and find the skin cold and slick. “Please wake up. I need you…” A sob breaks free from my lips. “I need you.”

I’m tackled to the floor by someone.

The only thing I can think of is that I feel the exact moment my hands leave Sixtine’s face and I wonder if that’s the last time I’m ever going to touch her.

It can’t be.

It can’t be.

“Let me go!” I scream, wrestling on the floor with my attacker.

I’m writhing against him when I see the blood. It stops me cold. Ice slithers into my veins, hardening my body to stone.

Blood is dripping off the other end of the table. It falls in thick, continuous drops and splatters to the floor. It’s everywhere.

There’s already a massive puddle.

And seeing it is like being eviscerated myself.

I fight against the hold with that much more vigor, determined to get back to Six. She needs me. She’s bleeding.

She’s dy–

No.

No, she’s not.

She can’t.

More hands come to restrain me on the floor until it’s me against four people and even I can’t win that fight.

It’s the most important one in my life, and I lose.

I’m hauled out of the theater against my will, my body dragged across the floor by nameless, faceless hands. I fight and grapple and swing every inch of the way, screaming my fury and my fear to no avail.

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