I remember the sound of her voice too. And the way it had leaked out of her like the blood pouring beneath her body. She whispered his name, not in fear, not even in anger.
It was peace, I realized.
Like she had already come to terms with the fact that she was going to die and didn’t want to spend her last moments bitter. Even when the world had been so bitter to her.
That’s the kind of person she was.
Me? I don’t think much about death. Never cared much for it. People die every day. Good ones, bad ones. It never mattered to me. Some deserve it, some don’t, but in the end, the ending is always the same. I’ve never wasted my time mourning strangers, or people in general.
But Wren?
She was different.
Wren deserved time. She deserved decades of it, lifetimes of it. Not this—not this.
That’s precisely why you should never expect anything from the world. Not fairness. Not mercy. Not even time.
It doesn’t stop to weigh your kindness against your suffering. It doesn’t tally up the good you’ve done and reward you for it. It doesn’t punish the ones you see as wicked, doesn’t spare theseemingly innocent. It watches you while you break yourself and asks why you were so careless.
The world isn’t cruel. That would mean it cares.
It doesn’t.
In the end, the sun will still rise tomorrow. Strangers will still walk these streets, never knowing who Wren was, never feeling the hole she left behind.
It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what youdeserve.
The world will turn just the same.
After all, we are just a moment of time. A poem for the stacks and stacks of history books. We won’t be remembered, not really. None of us will be remembered for who we were, but what they made of us when we’re already gone.
No matter the tragedy, or the dying girl in your hands, the world won’t stop for heartbreak. It just watches, indifferently, as the river runs dry.
Blinks as the girl’s strength leaves her body. Yawns as her breath shudders, falters. Stretches as her fingers go slack in mine.
And then, finally, she speaks. A whisper that’s barely there, slipping through her lips.
“John Ross.”
She tells me who did it. Says his name like it’s just another fact, like the sky is blue, like she has already accepted that this is how it ends. Like she isn’t even surprised.
I held her against me as her warmth faded, as her life drained out onto the pavement, and all I felt wasrage. A rage so deep it felt cold instead of hot. Something primal and bottomless andright.
Because I had promised her.
I had promised I’d never let anything like this happen to her. And I hadn’t.
At least, ever since we were dumped in that orphanage.
That had beenhisfault, too.
John Ross.
A pitiful specimen of a man. A moronic bastard. If I could conjure him back only to throttle the life out of him again, I’d do it without hesitation.
People mourned him. Some even pitied him.
Imagine that—to squander a life so completely and still be granted the dignity of grief.
