Except… Striker wasn’t the one who left.
I was.
I simply flew away and left my friends behind.
“Fuck you,” I whisper, but this time, I’m aiming it at myself because when I had my power, and I had my safety, and I even had a new family, I didn’t look back. And that’s okay because darkness has to be left behind. But Striker means something to me, and I didn’t find out what, and now… I never can.
“I didn’t have the chance to choose you, too,” I whisper, my voice now a rasp against the pressure on my neck.
“You… what?”
Typhon’s forehead creases, and then, like lightning, his eyes fly wide.
He jolts back from me, dropping me so unexpectedly that I barely manage to activate my levitation power before I would have hit the ground.
I propel myself away from him as fast as I can, shooting across the air as he roars profanities at me, his anger turning into searing flames that spew from his mouth.
And then the flames turn to blood.
“What is this?” Typhon screams, stumbling back from me, tearing at his own chest with his claws as his torso caves inward with sickening cracks. “What is happening?”
His snake-like legs stiffen and snap, leaving his body to plummet to the ground. His claws retract, and his ribcage shatters, multiple bones seeming to implode in unison.
I can only watch, my lips parted in shock, while Typhon writhes, trying to use his hands and arms to keep his body together, one hand flying to his head.
That’s when his thoughts pour toward me in an astonishingly peaceful stream that defies the horror happening to his body.
Oh.
These are not Typhon’s thoughts.
They are moments in time. Extremely fragile, extremely important, fleeting in their duration, but more powerful because they were so precious.
They’re memories that Striker tucked away.
The first time he saw me, standing with my back to him, light flickering around me.A fire angel.
The first time I threatened him, telling him I’d gore him like I gored the harpy, and it made his beast happy.
The time he touched me with gentle intentions, spreading soothing lotion across the cuts on my face.
The time he wrapped a blanket around me… tried to tend to my wounds even though he had nothing left in his medical kit… kissed me… held my hand…
Tiny, fragile moments.
And then, even more powerfully, the first time he controlled his anger after he left the Academy, the first time he realized he was breathing instead of bottling his rage, the first time he stepped out of the Legion to visit the Academy again…
The scent of wildflowers. The drape of blue curtains. A beam of sunlight.
The chance to start again.
Acceptance.
The stream of memories and emotions stops.
Typhon is curled up on the ground, his body caved in on itself, his breathing shallow, one claw digging at his chest,scratching at the location of his heart, but for some reason, he can’t seem to pierce the skin there.
That small section of his chest has remained intact.
