---- Chapter 23 Jeremy Glass POV: Her words were the final, killing blow. "You don't deserve it." She was right. | didn't. Forgiveness was a grace | hadn't earned, a gift | had no right to ask for. | felt a presence beside me and looked up. Elliot Meyers stood there, his arm protectively around Haylie's shoulders. His eyes were cold, his expression one of utter contempt. "You heard her," he said, his voice low and steady. "Leave." | wanted to fight. | wanted to scream. | wanted to drag her away from this man, this life, and force her to remember what we had. But the fight was gone. There was nothing left but a vast, empty wasteland of regret. | watched them walk away, their silhouettes framed by the setting sun. Haylie leaned her head on his shoulder, a gesture of trust and affection so natural, so easy, it was like a knife twisting in my gut. Suddenly, her knees buckled. She crumpled, a dead weight in Elliot's arms. "Haylie!" he cried, his voice sharp with panic. ---- | rushed forward, my own panic overriding everything else. A thin trickle of dark blood was seeping from the corner of her mouth. Elliot caught her, his face ashen. He looked up at me, his eyes blazing with a murderous fury. "What did you do to her?" he roared, and then his fist connected with my jaw. Pain exploded in my face, but | barely felt it. All | could see was the blood on Haylie's lips. "The doctor said there might be residual neurotoxin in her system," Elliot was shouting as he carried her inside. "From the kidnapping. He said any extreme stress could trigger it." The kidnapping. The one | had ordered. The one Joselin had planned. The poison was their final, parting gift. My world shattered into a million pieces. | had to get the antidote. | found Joselin and my father in a secure holding cell, awaiting trial. | didn't waste words. "The antidote," | snarled at Joselin. "For the poison you used on Haylie. Where is it?" She laughed, a wild, crazed sound. "There is no antidote, Jeremy. It was slow-acting. Untraceable. She's going to die. And you're going to have to live with the fact that you killed her." ---- | saw red. | don't remember what happened next, only the feeling of my hands around her throat, and my father, for the first time in his life, looking at me with fear in his eyes. He screamed that the antidote was in his study, hidden inside a false book. | ran. | ran faster than | had ever run in my life. | got to the mansion just as the police were sealing it off, the fire investigation underway. | broke through the police tape, ignoring their shouts, and burst into the smoke-filled library. | found the book, but as | pulled it from the shelf, a flaming beam from the ceiling crashed down, pinning my leg. Searing, white-hot pain. | screamed, but | didn't let go of the box. | dragged myself out of the inferno, my leg a mangled, bloody mess, the small wooden box clutched to my chest. | made it to the hospital, crawling the last few feet to Haylie's room. Elliot stood in the doorway, blocking my path. "| have it," | gasped, holding up the box. "The antidote." | collapsed at his feet, the world going gray around the edges. "Please," | begged, my voice a broken whisper. "Let me see her. Just once." He snatched the box from my hand and slammed the door in my face. The last thing | saw before | passed out was the flat, ---- unforgiving wood of the door that separated me from the only thing in the world that mattered.