Page 68 of Obliterated
I huff a laugh that tastes like ash, sounds brittle and broken. “You wouldn’t last two days in my place,” I croak. “You’d steal our bed and kick us to the floor.”
“Damn right.” She smirks up at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
And something inside of me just withers and dies right then and there.
She tries. Shetriesto hold it together for me, to pretend this isn’t happening. We both fuckingknowit’s happening, but she banters along anyway, because that’s what we do. We throw words at the gap so we don’t fall in.
Then she twitches again. Harder this time. Like her muscles are trying to tear themselves free of the bone. Her whole frame spasms, sharp as a wire pulled tight. The sound that rips out of her throat isn’t human. It’s a wail, a scream, a death cry that never ends, as she folds in on herself, drops to her knees and clutches her head.
“Max!Max, shit, it hurts.” The plea is jagged and raw.
I’m already moving, blade half-drawn without thinking, lungs burning like I’ve been sprinting. The forest goes small, the rustle of leaves, the slap of my boots, the crack of a twig, all of it muffled under the pounding in my ears.
“Tass—” My voice cracks in half. “Fuck no.Fuck no!Not you.Not yet!”
She jerks her head up, and I know. Godsdammit, Iknow. Her eyes shine with that shimmer I’ve seen a thousand times before, only this time it’s hers. For a second, everything detaches, everything is unreal. The smell of bark and wet earth, the way my friend—mybestfriend—crawls in on herself, the stupid bright memory of her laughing as we ran from the Watchers.
A tear cuts down her cheek, carving a line through the dirt.
“It’s happening…” She gasps, her whole body seizing like she’s drowning in her own skin. “Max—end me.Please. End me before—” Her teeth clack shut, jaw grinding as if the words are being stolen from her. “I don’t want to be a fucking monster!”
I drop to my knees in front of her, blade slipping from my grip. “Don’t. Don’t you fucking ask me that. I can’t—”
“You promised.You promised!Please.” Her voice is shredded, torn from the inside, but the words still land. A memory. A night on our roof, stars hidden by red clouds, her hand on my shoulder as she made me fucking swear.
She made me fucking swear.
“Godsdamn it, Tass…” My throat closes around the rest. I can’t breathe, can’t think. The air tastes wrong. The only thing I seeare her beautiful green eyes, big and scared, pleading through the shimmer, fighting like hell against the animal that’s clawing its way out of her.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, before she drops her head, arms clutching her skull as if she can press the thing back inside.
And that’s the last time it’s really her.
Another inhuman sound tears up her throat, half gurgle, half growl, like she can’t even swallow her own damn spit anymore.
“Tass?” I ask, my voice fucking broken, because I know. Iknowwhat this is, what’s happening, but my head refuses to believe what my heart already knows.
I’ve seen this before. The switch from Touched to Turned. The inevitable snap of the thread you’ve been clinging to.
She held on for so long.Longer than most. Longer than the others who cracked in a week. Longer than any of the rumors said was possible.
“Tass?” I try again, like if I keep saying her name, it’ll pin her here with me. Hold her in place, keep her from falling. My hand hovers stupidly in the air, wanting to touch her, shake her, drag her back from the edge.
Her head jerks up. Eyes not hers anymore.
All it takes is one horrible second, and then—
Shelunges.
I stagger back, fall on my ass, too fucking numb to do anything else as she comes for me. Everything moves slow and wrong, the slap of my palm on the dirt, the wet sound of her boots, the metallic tang in the air.
I don’t grab my cleaver where it fell in the grass.
I don’t grab Whisper.
I don’t even fucking defend myself. I don’t hold my hands up when she slams into me, throwing us both down on the forest floor.
The crack when we hit is as loud as the crack of the remnants of my heart as it splits right the fuck apart.
