Glancing at the back of the desperate man in front of me, heart thundering in his chest, I tell them,“The cliff. Where Beck and I found the fissure that led to the cavern.”
Another thirty minutes pass by before I see a sliver of light up ahead. He shoves me through the jagged opening first, and it’s awkward as hell to make my way through sideways with my wrists still being crushed in his, my arms getting scraped to hell. Eventually, fresh air smacks me, and I stumble out to find the sun starting to come up, the storm blowing over us out to the ocean. I can see the rain far off in the distance, but here, at the outskirts of the forest, the sun starts waking up the city that’s far too close for comfort.
“You lied,” he rasps, still not releasing my wrists as he tilts his dirt-streaked face towards the sun, breathing heavily. As if he can feel my confusion, he adds, “I felt the scars from the mate mark on your neck. The sedatives would have worn off the bear by now and he’ll have been tracking you, speaking to you. Yet there’s nobody here waiting for us.”
Looking up at the sky, I blink back tears and croak, “I did.”
“Why?” It’s a harsh demand, yet with it, he releases my sore wrists.
“Because you weren’t wrong. It’s not our fault.”
His eyes close, and he takes a deep breath of the freshest air he’s inhaled in centuries. On his exhale, I strike, slashing his throat open. I’m not like Vice, or Beck. I can’t turn off my emotions no matter how much I try. So I stand here, tears streaming down my face as I watch him collapse on the ground, blood rapidly pooling around him and staining the grass around him.
“But just because the world’s unfair doesn’t mean you can keep tearing people from their lives to suffer with you. I wanted you to have this though, the chance to feel the sun on your face one more time.”
His eyes remain closed, and he doesn’t even claw at his throat, desperately trying to cling to life. He simply lies there, soaking up every last second he can above ground while accepting that all of his misery finally has an end in sight. “Thank you.” The words are little more than a strangled whisper, but I know they’re going to haunt my dreams until the day I die.
I watch him in silence until his heart stops beating, burning the vision into my memory as penance. Every person I killed before, the guys are right; they weren’t my burden to bear. But this one? This one I chose, and I’ll always have to live with that, even if one day I manage to convince myself it was an act of mercy.
***
Epilogue
Five Years Later
––––––––
“Joselyn, a word, please?”
Lips twisted in a grimace, the teenage brunette stays seated in her chair while the other five people from today’s group grab their things and make a beeline to escape for the day. She’s the youngest out of everyone we have staying with us currently by at least ten years, and it’s certainly not helping matters any.
The heavy door shuts behind the last person, leaving the two of us sitting across from each other. Sighing, I rise to my feet, going back to my desk and rummaging around in the bottom drawer. Withdrawing a couple shot size bottles of cheap rum, I toss her one as I lean against the front of my desk. She catches it easily, her speed enviable, and it sends a stab of pain through my chest at the memories it evokes.
“I’m only seventeen,” she reminds me, raising an eyebrow.
I hold her stare while I twist the cap on my miniature bottle. “Oh I’m sorry, is that where we’re drawing the line these days?”
