In His Keeping

“Goddamn it, Ari, no!” Beau roared. “Enough! I refuse to let you kill yourself over this. You’ve bled far too much even before you were shot. You’re going to have a stroke or an aneurism.”

He turned his pleading gaze on her parents, silently asking for their support.

“Ari, whatever it is you think you’re doing, please don’t,” her mother said softly. “Please, just come home with us.”

Ari shook her head, eyes still glowing. Blood began to slowly creep from her nose and her ears as her brow furrowed even more.

The earth shook beneath the helicopter, making it shake too. Ari’s parents glanced uneasily at their daughter and Gavin forcefully interjected himself.

“Ari, stop it,” he demanded. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let you do further harm to yourself. For your mother’s sake—for my sake, stop.”

“I have to do this,” Ari said softly. “I can’t let them win. I made a vow. To myself. And I have to see it through. I can’t let others endure what’s been done to me and countless others.”

Then she closed her eyes as if shutting them all out. Beau. Her parents. Everything but her objective.

Beau issued a sharp command to the pilot to take off, hoping that would deter Ari.

He should have known better.

Even as the helicopter rose, hovering a split second before zooming over the building and away, the entire complex went up in an explosion of flames, a mushroom cloud resembling an atomic blast hurling upward into the air.

Everyone in the helicopter stared down in awe as the building simply disintegrated before their very eyes.

But Beau was only looking at Ari. At the blood running like a river from her nose, ears and mouth. He tightened his hold around her even as he was careful not to move the leg that had taken the bullet meant for him.

Ari’s eyes were dull and lifeless, the spark that powered the surge of mental energy necessary to bring down the entire compound was now nothing more than a dim light source in danger of being extinguished.

She stirred in Beau’s arms, pushing weakly as if she wanted to sit up. But she couldn’t even support her own weight. Beau carefully lifted so she could see her parents, but her gaze was empty. Blank. She stared beyond the occupants of the helicopter to the orange fireball erupting into the sky and the thick wall of smoke that blanketed the entire area.

Her unfocused gaze found Beau, her eyelids fluttering weakly, as though it were a struggle to merely remain conscious.

“Is it gone?” she asked hoarsely. “Is it destroyed?”

Beau’s throat closed in, swelling with emotion until it was impossible for him to swallow.

“Yes, honey. It’s gone. You destroyed it just like you swore you would.”

“And my parents?” she whispered.

Beau exchanged quick worried glances with her mom and dad because they were sitting right next to her. They’d held her, talked to her. And she wasn’t aware of their presence?

Beau pressed his lips to her forehead. “Your parents are okay. More than okay. You saved them. They’re here now with you. Do you want to see them?”

Ari’s eyes closed and she sagged limply against Beau.

“It’s finished,” she whispered.

Beau gathered her more tightly in his arms, fear knotting his insides. He held her fiercely as if by holding her tighter he could somehow hold her spirit with him in the here and now. Because he could see her fading away. As though she’d mustered just enough strength to achieve her objective and now was sliding away from him with each passing second.

“No, it’s not finished,” Beau choked out. “Not you and me, Ari. We’re just beginning. You hang on. Don’t you dare give up. Do you hear me? This isn’t finished!”

He pressed his lips to the top of her head, hot tears sliding down his cheeks.

“Don’t go, Ari. Don’t leave me. I love you,” he said brokenly.

He bowed his head, pulling her closer into his body even as his fingers stroked her neck, searching for a pulse. There’d been so much blood. So much mental strain. How could anyone survive something like this?

Her breath, so light and erratic puffed and then stuttered against his skin. And then she went utterly still. No rise and fall of her chest. No air exchange. No pulse. Nothing.

“No!” Beau roared in fury, denial raging in his mind, heart and soul. “Goddamn you. Come back to me, Ari! You can’t leave me. You can never leave me!”

Zack and Gavin managed to pull Ari from Beau’s grasp and they laid her on the floor of the helicopter so they could begin CPR. But it was all distant. Like it wasn’t really happening. As though Beau was watching it happen to a complete stranger with mild curiosity.

Only this was no stranger. Ari was his entire world. Without her to share it with him, it simply wasn’t worth getting up in the mornings.

She wasn’t responding to Zack and her father’s urgent attempts to bring her back. It was simply too much for Beau to handle any longer.

He dropped to the floor and gathered Ari’s limp body in his arms and rocked back and forth, his face buried in her hair.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered. “Please don’t leave me, Ari. Stay. Fight this. Fight for us. Just please don’t leave me when it took so long for me to find the other half of my soul.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

BEAU paced the interior of the waiting room like a caged lion, edgy, raw, his nerves so jagged that any sound whatsoever set his teeth on edge. Every time one of the medical staff opened the door to the waiting room, he surged to attention, hoping it was someone bearing news about Ari.