Page 116 of Killing Me Softly

“Kenny?” Jessica gripped his wrist. “You look so very tired. Come rest.”

Kenny was tired.

So tired.

And, God, he missed Jessica. Missedthis.

Missed the time when he’d believed in a world without pain. Without blood. Without darkness.

What reason could there possibly be to leave that?

chapter twenty-three

(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight

Present day

Aaron was wrecked.

Physically. Emotionally. In every way a person could be.

Sat slumped in the waiting area of Ryston Hospital A&E with his head in his hands, he shook. Blood had dried into his skin, turning his hands stiff and crusted. His clothes—muddy, ripped, ruined—clung to him and he wasn’t sure how much of the blood was his, Kenny’s, Mel’s or Mable’s. But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

Not anymore.

The paramedics had tried to help him at the scene, speaking in that firm, level way first responders do when faced with someone barely holding it together. They’d draped a blanket over his shoulders and one had tried to check his vitals, but he shoved them away.

“Don’t touch me. Help them.”

So they had.

They’d loaded Kenny and Mel into the ambulances first—Mel barely conscious, bleeding from her thigh, shock stealing her voice, and Kenny—God, Kenny—so pale, his chest rising in weak, uneven gasps. Reality yanked Aaron back when the flashing lights disappeared into the chaos and an officer shoved him into a police vehicle.

Because there was still a dead body in that warehouse.

Two near-dead people being rushed to hospital.

But the police had brought him here to be checked for injuries, and after the all-clear, he’d refused to leave. He couldn’t care about the others in the waiting area. The nurses moving in and out of triage, the quiet hum of whispered conversations, the wary glances from strangers who stole looks at him then turned away. He could feel their unease, the shock in their expressions as they took in his state. Blood-caked, mud-streaked clothes torn. A police officer stood nearby, stationed over him like a guard dog, waiting for the detective-in-charge to assess the situation, but even that barely registered.

It had been hours.Hours and hours and hours.

At some point, DI Jack Bentley arrived, his voice low but firm as he spoke with his officers, gathering updates, flipping through his notes with the detached efficiency that came from seeing the worst of humanity. The words filtered through Aaron’s exhausted brain in pieces, disjointed enough to feel unreal. Back at the warehouse, where it had all happened, forensic teams were combing through the blood-soaked floor. Mable’s body secured, documented, photographed. Her knife bagged, her bloody footprints preserved. Kenny and Mel’s injuries recorded, medical reports added to the growing case file, ensuring every wound, every bruise, every scar of violence was accounted for. And Aaron—they’d question him later. They needed toreconstruct the chaos, to piece together the who, the what, thewhy.

But none of that mattered. Not to him.

Because Kenny was in surgery.

He’d arrived at the hospital in critical condition, paramedics forcing fluids into his veins to keep his blood pressure from dropping too low. The deep chest wound had required immediate intervention, and there was still the possibility of a punctured lung. That was all Aaron knew. That was all they had told him.

Mel was rushed into trauma care. Her thigh injury was severe but not life-threatening. He hadn’t seen her, hadn’t spoken to her. He didn’t even know if she was conscious.

All he could do waswait.

Wait in the sterile, fluorescent-lit hell of the hospital, drowning in the uncertainty, trying to hold himself together when all he wanted to do was collapse.

Eventually, DI Bentley made his way over, his presence cutting through the haze of background noise. He leaned in close to the officer beside him, murmuring something low and firm. The officer gave a clipped nod, a sharp“Yessir,”before turning on his heel and striding away.

Aaron was too lost in the numb, suffocating weight of waiting to notice the subtle shift in Jack’s posture. But his expression softened. Just enough to push aside the detective and let go of the distant chill of professionalism, easing into something warmer. Concern, familiarity, afriendrather than an interrogator.

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