"...looks terrible..."
"...been like this for weeks..."
"...poor Cade, do you think she's..."
"...shouldn't say that in front of him..."
Someone was dabbing at my face with a warm cloth, the gentle pressure sending spikes of pain through my battered skin. I opened my eyes to find Silvia kneeling beside me, her expression focused as she cleaned the blood from my face.
"This is going to sting," she warned, holding up an antiseptic wipe. I didn't flinch as she applied it to the cut above my eye, welcoming the burn. It was nothing compared to what Cadence must be enduring, if she was still alive.
If.
Always if.
A sound escaped me, something between a laugh and a sob.
"She told me to drop dead," I said, the memory crystal clear despite the alcohol clouding everything else. "The last thing she ever said to me. 'Drop dead, Logan.' And I deserved it. I deserve worse."
"Stop," Melody said, appearing beside Silvia with fresh towels. "This isn't helping Cade, Logan. Destroying yourself won't bring her back."
"Nothing will bring her back," I said, the words catching in my throat. "She's gone. She's fucking gone, and it's my fault."
"You don't know that," Melody insisted, her voice cracking slightly. "She could still be out there. She could still be alive. But she needs you to be strong, Logan. She needs you to keep fighting for her, not give up."
“What, like Amy?” I snapped. Melody gasped like she had been stung. Last year, Amy, the then Archive Consort, had disappeared, and we had never found her.
“You know what, Logan,” Melody snapped at me, “Fuck you! Fuck you and your fucking misery. If you are going to give up on her, then you don’t deserve our help.” Even in my drunken haze, I knew I had gone too far. I was now hurting the people I caredabout. I wanted to believe that there was still hope, that Cadence would come back. God, how I wanted to believe. But the weeks of fruitless searching, of dead ends and false hopes, had worn away my faith like water over stone. All that remained was guilt and grief, twin anchors dragging me into the depths.
"I’m sorry," I whispered, closing my eyes against the sudden burning of tears. "I’m so sorry, Mel. It hurts too much." Her face crumpled, and I saw tears flow down her cheeks.
"I'm so tired," I admitted, the words barely audible. "I'm so fucking tired of failing her."
"Rest," Melody said, draping a blanket over me. "Just for tonight. Tomorrow, you can go back to searching, to fighting. But tonight, rest."
“I’m sorry, Mel,” I mumbled again, feeling all the fight drain out of me.
“I know you are,” she whispered. “When you have slept, you can go home.” But without Cadence, I had no home. Without her, I was just a hollow shell of the man I used to be, a ghost haunting the rooms where she should have been. And as Christmas Day finally bled into the early hours of December 26th, I surrendered to the darkness, letting it take me where her ghost couldn't follow, where her absence couldn't hurt, if only for a few merciful hours.
Cold.
Dark.
So. Much. Pain.
Footsteps and voices. Oh god, he’s back, and he has more. The cruel sound of laughter as the grating of the heavy metal door opens.
“Please,” I whisper, my voice hoarse from screaming. “Please… I can’t… not again.”
Then he is there, right in front of me, with that smirk on his sick twisted face.
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”
Pain. That was my first conscious thought as awareness slowly returned. Not the dull, familiar ache of a hangover, though that was certainly there too, but the sharp, insistent throb of genuine injury. My face felt swollen, my ribs protested with each breath, and my knuckles were raw and crusted with dried blood.
I cracked one eye open, immediately regretting it as winter sunlight stabbed through the bay windows of an unfamiliar room. The cream walls and floral decor momentarily confused me before it clicked where I was. Courts House. The memories of the previous night came flooding back in disjointed flashes: the empty whiskey bottle in Covenant House, the snow falling as I stumbled through campus, the bar fight I'd practically begged for, Melody's disappointed face as Syndicate Regents hauled my pathetic carcass to safety.
"Fuck," I muttered, the word scraping past my dry throat.
