Stay With Me Please
ARIANA’S POV
Everything was red.
Red and mud and screaming.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The world had slowed to a crawl, every second dragging like a knife across my skin.
I was on the ground. Cold. Wet. Hardin was shouting—his voice sharp and ragged—but I couldn’t hear the words anymore. My ears were ringing, blood roaring through my veins like a storm. My shoulder throbbed, searing hot pain lancing through the joint like a branding iron. But I didn’t care.
Because she was in my arms.
My mother.
Or… the woman I had called mother for the last five years.
Her body was heavy against mine, warm one second, then terrifyingly still the next.
“No…” I whispered, cradling her as best I could with my good arm, my injured shoulder screaming in protest. “No, no, no, no—please—”
Her head lolled against me. Her hair, drenched in rain and blood, clung to her cheeks. I brushed it away with shaking fingers.
She was bleeding everywhere.
There were holes. So many. Her white blouse was soaked through, the fabric clinging to her chest where blood pulsed sluggishly from wounds I couldn’t count. My fingers were coated in it, slippery and trembling, and yet I couldn’t stop holding her tighter, pulling her close like I could shield her now.
Hardin was beside us, shouting for medics, for backup, for something—anything—but I barely registered his presence. I couldn’t stop looking at her face.
“Mom…” I choked, the word tasting strange on my tongue. “Why?”
Her eyes fluttered open. Barely.
She looked at me.
Really looked at me.
And smiled.
Even with blood pooling at the corner of her mouth, even with the rain streaking down her pale cheeks, it was the gentlest, most heartbreakingly real smile I’d ever seen.
“For you…” she rasped, her voice broken and wet. “Always… for you…”
I shook my head, my tears falling freely now. I could feel them mixing with the blood on her chest. “Why would you do that?” I whispered. “Why—why would you do that for me?”
Her fingers twitched weakly against my arm.
“This… is the only way… I can make it up to you…” she whispered. “For… for everything I didn’t protect you from…”
“No, no, don’t talk like that,” I begged, my voice rising in panic. “Please—stay with me. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay—just hold on, okay? Hold on!”
She coughed. Blood bubbled on her lips. Her body jerked once. And then…
Stillness.
No more words.
No more fight.
Just… silence.
“No,” I sobbed, pressing my forehead to hers. “No, no, no—please don’t leave me. Please—don’t leave me, please—”
Her eyes were still open.
But they weren’t hers anymore.
They were glassy. Empty. Hollow.
Gone.
I screamed.
A sound I didn’t recognize. A sound so raw, so full of pain it cracked the sky.
I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t breathe—
Hardin’s arms wrapped around me from behind, trying to pull me back, trying to lift her off me, but I refused to let go.
“No!” I shrieked, clutching her tighter. “Don’t take her from me!”
“She’s gone, baby,” Hardin whispered against my ear, his voice thick, shaking. “I’m so sorry—but we need to stop your bleeding. You’re hurt—Ariana, look at me—you’re bleeding too—”
“I don’t care!” I sobbed. “I don’t care—I didn’t even get to tell her—didn’t get to ask—”
My body convulsed with the force of my grief.
My shoulder throbbed in time with my heartbeat—fast, furious, blinding.
I looked down at the woman who had lied to me.
Protected me.
Who had just given her life for me.
And I didn’t know what to feel.
Anger?
Love?
Grief?
All of it mixed together in a tide that drowned me whole.
I think I was still whispering something—her name? Mom?—when the darkness finally crept in.
It started at the edges of my vision, curling inward like frost on glass.
I blinked hard, once. Twice.
Hardin was in front of me now. His hands were on my face. I could see his mouth moving, but the words were too far away.
I tried to lift my hand to touch him.
But I couldn’t.
My fingers wouldn’t move.
Then even his face started to blur.
My body felt like it was sinking—no, falling—into the mud, into the blood, into the silence.
And the last thing I heard before it all went black…
Was him.
His voice.
Frantic. Broken.
“Stay with me, Ari. Please… please stay with me…”
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