“Dad—” I was shaking him, gripping his shirt, pressing my hands against the dark stain blooming across his ribs. “No⁠—”

He blinked up at me, eyes glassy.

I didn’t understand.

One second, he was alive, yelling at me for running in without thinking. And now he was heavy in my arms, the warmth of him fading too fast. Someone was screaming. Maybe it was me.

I pressed my hand over his, trying to stop the blood from leaking through his fingers, but there was too much of it.

“No,” I choked, my hands pressing uselessly against his chest. “Somebody help!” I screamed. “Somebody call an ambulance!”

People were shouting around us. Sirens. Footsteps. Chaos. The man I had tackled coughed, pinned beneath the bystanders.

“Help is coming, alright?” I gasped, my hands trembling and slick with blood. “Please, Dad, just hang on. Stay with me.”

His lips parted again. His eyes locked onto mine, pleading. “Blake.”

My breath came out in ragged, broken gasps. “Just hold on, okay?” I pressed harder against the wound. “Help is coming. You’re gonna be fine, I promise. I got you. Please, just hold on.”

My chest constricted painfully as I tried to say more.

Dad smiled. As if he knew something I didn’t.

It was the kind of smile you give when you’ve already made peace with something that no one else can accept.

“Dad,” I said, but the word came out as nothing more than a breathless plea. “I-I didn’t—” The words tangled in my throat, choked by the panic swelling inside me, lost in the chaos of my mind. My chest heaved as I fought for air. “Dad⁠—”

His hand, still warm and familiar, gripped mine weakly. “Don’t—” He coughed, his body shuddering. “Not your fault.”

My head shook violently, my throat too tight to breathe. “Please,” I choked. “You… You can’t leave me. I need you, Dad.”

His lips moved again, but his voice was too quiet now.

I had to lean in to hear him.

“Tell your mom I love her.”

I sucked in a breath, shaking my head. “You tell her yourself,” I replied, my voice breaking. “You hear me? You tell her yourself. You tell Mom, and you tell Beverly. You tell them both when you’re standing on your own two feet.”

His eyelids fluttered. His grip on me slackened.

“No,” I choked out. “Don’t do this. Don’t—” I pressed harder against the wound, but the blood just kept coming, hot and sticky, staining my hands, my clothes, everything.

I think I screamed. I think I shook him, yelled his name, begged him to come back. But he didn’t.

His hand slipped from mine, and I crumpled over him, gripping his shirt, my entire body wracked with violent tremors. He still smelled like aftershave and coffee.

I had spent my whole life feeling powerless.

This was worse.

This was helplessness.