The shot rings through the air and I watch the scene before me in horror.
I immediately drop Blaine's gun at the realisation of what I've just done. I shot someone and this time I meant to do it.
Nathan falls forward and onto the floor and I stare at his unmoving body.
Shit.
"Cassie." Blaine shouts but I can't bring myself to look away from Nathan who's unconscious and quickly bleeding out.
Blaine quickly approaches me and takes my face in his hands.
"Is he- did I?" I shakily ask.
Blaine takes a quick look back to Nathan before looking back to me. When he sees the shock on my face he decides to go over to Nathan.
He checks his pulse and looks to see if he's breathing.
Blaine lets out an annoyed huff before starting CPR.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"I'm keeping him alive. Killing someone, especially for the first time takes a toll on you. You've already been through enough, I'm not letting him do this to you too." He says. "Don't worry he will die but it'll be by my hand not yours."
I just watch in pure shock of everything that happened.
At some point Blaine takes out his phone, I don't know who he called, I'm too out of it.
I feel like my body isn't even mine, like I'm in a totally different world.
Nothing feels real anymore.
I feel myself gradually slip away. The world around me fades slowly into darkness.
"Cassie. Shit." I hear quick footsteps as the echo of an ambulance sounds in the distance.
♡♡♡
I wake up to the sound of bleeping.
I'm so tired just let me fucking sleep, please.
The beeping continues so I open my eyes in annoyance. I'm ready to tell someone off when I see a heart monitor. Oh. I guess there are worse ways to be woken up.
My eyes scan the room and I realise I'm in Blaine's at home hospital room and he's sat on a chair right beside me.
"Blaine?" I say and he still doesn't look at me.
"Yes?" He replies.
"Where's Vincent, is he ok?" Is the first thing I ask.
"He's fine."
"And-"
"He's alive but far from fine." He says.
"Blaine?"
"Yes?"
"Why won't you look at me?" I ask and he doesn't reply. I look down at my bruised and cut arms sadly. "Do I disgust you?"
He looks at me with tears in his eyes. "No. No, of course not."
"What's wrong?" I ask.
"This is all my fault." He says, a silent tear cascading down his face.
I shake my head. "Please don't do that, it's not your fault."
"I think you should leave." He says.
"Wow, thanks."
"You shouldn't be involved in this, it was a mistake to get you involved."
"I knew you'd eventually get sick of me." I admit.
"I'm not sick of you I just need you to be safe."
"And what about what I need?" I ask.
"They used you against me, they tortured you." He states. "I can't give you what you need."
"You're not seriously breaking up with me right now are you?"
"No." He let's out a breath of air. "I'm not breaking up with you, I'm giving you a way out. Cassie I love you and I don't want you to go at all but it's what's best."
"You do realise I was on my way to hide when they took me, right?" I state. "You're saying all these things to try and help me but you're only hurting me more. Why can't you see that?" I say, my voice shaking and tears streaming down my face. "It was my decision to stay before and it's my decision now, none of this is on you."
Blaine pulls my head against his so our foreheads are touching. "I'm so sorry." He says.
"You have nothing to be sorry for." I say as our tears mix and fall to the floor.
"You mean everything to me. I can't bare to see you hurting." He says.
I move closer to him and end up moving my aching body onto his lap. I pull his body closer to mine and into a hug.
I cry into his shoulder for a while and even though he's crying too, he strokes my hair and comforts me.
"It's not your fault Blaine, I hope you know that." I say and he nods. "Please don't ever leave me."
"I won't." He says. "I swear to you I won't."
Blaine begrudgingly places me back on the bed when Reyna comes in to do a check up on me.
"I had to give you some stitches when you were unconscious and I give you some legal drugs to help with the pain so it wasn't unbearable when you woke." She explains. "You were in a coma for almost three days but everything seems to be starting to heal which is a good thing but it will still be a while until you're fully back to normal. I'm not so sure about the cuts though, depending on how deep it was and your bodys healing ability they might leave scars but don't worry too much about that. There's not much else I can do at the minute apart from give you the drugs to help with the pain."
"Thank you Reyna."
"It's no problem, you let me know if there's anything else I can do to help. I hope you're feeling better soon."
After she leaves, Blaine goes to the cooks and gets me something to eat. He puts the plate in front of me and I stare at it and all the feelings come racing back.
"I can't." I state after just staring at the plate in front of me for some time.
"I know that it's hard, Cass, I really do." He says. "But you've made progress, I've seen it. I know you can do this because you're brave and strong and resilient."
I take a deep breath and pick up some food.
Even with tears in my eyes, I go against every part of my body telling me not to and start eating the food. "Do you know how hard it is to eat while you're sad?" Never mind sad with an eating disorder.
"I know baby, which is why I'm so proud of you." He says kissing the side of my head.
I eat most of the plate until it feels physically impossible to eat the rest.
"I want to see him." I say.
"Vincent? He went to rest, he was going to come back to see you after but I can get him if you like?"
"That's not who I was talking about." I say looking into Blaine's eyes, trying to get him to understand.
He seems to understand who I mean. "No." He replies without hesitation. "He is never going anywhere near you ever again, that's a promise."
"I need to see him."
"No fucking way."
"Blaine-"
"No. Why would you want to go anywhere near Nathan after what he's done?" He asks.
"I want to know why he did it."
"Because he's a sick piece of shit and that's putting it nicely. He thinks I killed his stupid wife but I swear to you I didn't. He used you to get to me and I'm so unbelievably sorry."
"It's not your fault Blaine." I tell him. "But I still need to see him."
"No."
"Yes."
"No. End of conversation." He concludes.
"You can't just do that-"
"Yes I can."
"What's going on here?" Sidney asks walking into the room.
"Your sister wants to go and see that fucker." Blaine states.
"Cassie?" Sidney questions, turning to me with a confused look.
"Sidney you don't understand-"
"No. I don't understand why you'd want to see the man that put you through hell and also tried to kill me." He says. I think I liked it better when the two of them didn't agree.
"I want to know why he did it." As bad as it sounds, I don't think I can heal without knowing every detail because right now I don't understand any of it. I need to understand.
"And you think he's just going to tell you his reasoning?" Blaine asks.
"You telling me not to go isn't going to stop me." I state.
"It's not a suggestion. You are not going." Blaine says.
"I agree, you're not." Sidney adds.
"You can't do this."
"I can't believe we're even having this conversation." Sidney says.
"It's for your own good." Blaine says.
"I need to talk to him because I don't understand how someone could do this to another human being. I didn't do anything to him." I say, my voice cracking. "He was supposed to be my friend."
"Oh, castle." Sidney says, his tone softening. He brings me in for a hug. "Some people are just horrible people. Seeing him isn't going to do any good because he's never going to give you the answers you want or need.
"Any excuse that he would have given you wouldn't have been enough. It wouldn't have brought you peace of mind. None of his excuses can take away the pain." Blaine says.
"I don't know what else to do." I sob against my brothers shoulder. "I need Vincent."
"I'll get him." Blaine says, leaving to find him.
"Cassie you don't have to stay here if you don't want." Sidney says pulling back from the hug to look at me. "We can get far away from here and start a new life free from all of this."
I shake my head. "As much as I'd love to put all of the hurt behind me I can't leave."
"Why?" He asks. "There's no reason for you to stay."
"I'm in love with Blaine." I confess.
"You're- no fucking way." He says, standing from the bed. "He ruined our family. I had to pretend to be dead for something I didn't even do and then mom left and went who knows where and now everything's messed up."
"Blaine didn't force mom to leave." I state. "You think Blaine is some irredeemable bad guy but he let you go didn't he? He thought you killed a hundred people and he let you go because I asked him to."
"It was probably some sort of scheme and it was out of luck that you turned out to be right." He says.
"Why didn't you tell me about Nathan?" I ask, changing the topic.
"I didn't think I needed to. Him and I were friends until Eva died. I went to his apartment to see how he was doing, he wasn't there and it was a complete mess. I was looking through a few of Eva's things to try and help me feel better when I found a letter from Blaine to her. It included all the things he threatened to do to her. So I came here and tried to get revenge, then Alvaro shows up disguised as Nathan. I didn't question it much, figured he was doing the same thing." Sidney says. "I don't blame him for wanting revenge what I do blame him for is getting my sister involved and Blaine is also guilty for that. Blaine killed Eva, Cassie."
"No, he told me he didn't." I state.
"He's a liar." He's not.
"Sidney, you don't know him like I do." I try to reason.
"You're blinded by love, you can't see what's right in front of your face."
"You have no proof that Blaine even sent that letter."
"You have no proof he didn't and it's not worth risking your life over."
"I know in my soul that Blaine would never do that, not if she was innocent and he wouldn't lie to me."
"Cassie, if you stay with him I can't protect you."
"I know. I know your heart is in the right place but you just have to trust me, please."
He begrudgingly nods. "But if he does anything wrong you come to me straight away before it's too late."
"I will." I promise.
Sidney leaves just as he sees Vincent come in.
"Hi." Vincent says without his usual cheery tone. "How are you feeling?" He asks.
"I don't know."
"Me neither." He says sitting in the seat that Blaine was sat in not too long since.
"I just...can't make sense of it." I tell him.
"I know how you feel, I feel the same." He says. "I'm stuck questioning every encounter I ever had with him. He betrayed us in the worst way possible." He pauses. "You shouldn't have told him to let me go, I didn't want you to be on your own."
"I'm sorry, really, but I couldn't sit there and do nothing when I knew he wanted me."
"While I don't agree with it, I understand. I would've done the same thing." He states. "Hey, was that your brother I just saw?" He asks, lightening the mood.
"Yeah, he was trying to convince me to run away with him again."
"Again?" Vincent questions, confused.
"Oh boy have I got a story to tell you." I say. "So basically a couple minutes after I found out Sidney was alive Blaine shoots him as soon as he saw him. Rowan Grey was Sidney's fake name so of course Blaine thinks he's a traitor. He pulls me away to talk...yada...yada. I shoot Blaine, rescue Sidney and we all live happily ever after, the end." I explain.
"Can we backtrack on the you shooting Blaine for a second because what!?"
"It wasn't entirely deliberate. I shot the lock of Sidney's cell and then Blaine came in the room and I panicked. I shot him in the leg. He was extremely pissed after that." I continue "Sidney and I ran off into the woods to try and escape but Blaine caught us. I managed to convince him to let Sidney live by giving him the Kashmir Sapphire that he's recently given me back after I accidentally confessed my feelings for him and we kissed."
Vincent looks completely taken aback. "That's not how I thought the story would end."
"Blaine let me insult him so many times in French so I thought I'd be safe confessing my feelings in French, to get it out. Turns out he knows French and I'm an idiot for believing he didn't." I say.
"This is gold, tell me more."
♡♡♡
A/n Olivia Rodrigo is really calling me out with her new album.