My vision tunnels as I stare at her. There’s no heartbeat, no life. There’s no hope.
“Theo!” Renji screams when he sees me, his eyes glowing wild with grief and madness. “Bring her back, please. I’ll pay the price! Anything! Ask Hades, ask Selene, I don’t care who, take my life in return for hers. We need her, I need her...” He breaks down, and I don’t know what to say.
This pain is choking me.
I’ve never seen my brother like this, never seen him unravel so completely, and something inside my chest splits wide open as I close the distance between us and drop to my knees beside him, my hands shaking violently as I gently take her head from his grasp and place it back beside her body, trying to make her whole even though I already know it’s too late.
She’s… there’s no hope. She’s gone. She was murdered.
There are gaping holes torn clean through her torso, chest and stomach. The attack was so brutal that it makes my stomach twist, reality finally crashing down on me.
Hades!I shout in my mind, desperation tearing my voice raw as I press my hand against Ma’s broken body, her skin already cooling beneath my palm.Hades, I call on you. Help me! Please.
Nothing.
HADES!I thunder, my throat burning, despair threatening to swallow me whole.
I am here… but I cannot do anything. Her time was up.
The response slams into me, devoid of any emotion, as if she is of no importance. I spin, searching for him, searching foranything, but he doesn’t appear, not even bothering to show his face.
Name your price,I beg, my voice breaking as hands gently pull Ma away from me.Please. Anything.
I cannot. This time, there is nothing I can do.
And then he’s gone.
“Theo! Do something!” someone shouts.
I look up, blinking through tears, and see Ares standing there, fury and grief twisting his features; Carter frozen a few meters away, pale and shaking, his hands trembling at his sides.
“What happened to her?” I snarl, my voice shaking with barely restrained rage as I glare at the warriors nearby.
One of them looks away in shame and regret, still in wolf form, his fur bloody and matted.
We weren’t gone long. She told us to take the people below. The manananggal she was fighting was already dead. The morghul must have-
“No,” I cut in sharply, my stomach sinking as I stare at Ma’s wounds. “No, this isn’t a morghul’s doing.”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
“Where were you, Renji?” I ask quietly, turning to him.
He looks up at me, eyes shattered. “I-I shouldn’t have left her.”
“No,” I say softly, dread curling in my gut. “Where were you, and what were you doing that you got here so fast?”
Ares snaps his head toward me.
“Who cares?!” he roars. “Fix her! Bring her back!”
“I can’t,” I whisper, my voice hollow and breaking as tears finally spill over.
“You brought me back before! Now bring her back. Please,” Ares whispers, distraught. ‘Please’ isn’t a word in his vocabulary, and as he kneels there, I’ve never seen him look so… vulnerable. “Do something, Theo.”
“I can’t, I tried. We need to find out who did this, because it wasn’t that fucking morghul,” I snarl, staring at Renji.
His eyes meet mine, and he flinches, realising what I was implying moments ago. “You think I did this?”
