Page 47 of To Kill a Vampire
“Is that–” She flinches as another one pellets her cheek. “Is that rain?” She raises a hand to her face, looking skeptically at the water on her fingertips.
My heart flutters just seeing her curiosity. Just seeingheronce again.
“It’s rain.”
Her brows lower, her gaze turning toward me, flooding me with happiness from the simple sight of her beautiful face.
She isn’t the girl I met at Compound 186 anymore. She isn’t the naive girl who was afraid to ask questions. She’s stronger than she realizes. She’s amazing, and she doesn’t even see it.
“The last of the vampires are gone. You broke the curse, Fallon.”
Twenty-Four
A New World
Fallon
Curse, curse, curse.
It’s all I’ve heard for days. Decades might come and go, and people will probably still whisper the word every time they look at me.
Will they remember him as well?
Will they remember the hybrid they pushed to the brink? The hybrid who lost his life to save mine? The one who put himself in danger time and time again just to find acceptance among his peers.
The waves knock into me, soaking my jeans as I watch Declan’s body drift out to sea. I hate thinking that he’s alone out there.
The sun hasn’t risen yet. The world is still quiet as the night still clings to the skyline. A blazing hue stains the sky, a hint of the sun casting across the ocean while the clear moon still hangs high above me.
With little strength, I pushed him out to sea while everyone slept. By myself. I didn’t want the others to help me. It’s something I had to do alone. Something that was too close to my heart to share with anyone else.
I swallow hard, my arms wrapping around myself as his body becomes nothing more than a spec of color in this world, the distant horizon enveloping him into nothingness.
My eyes close tightly, his careless smile burning into my memory.
We didn’t save the others. We did all we could do to save the hybrids locked away within the Capitol, but it wasn’t enough. Too much damage had already been done. My lungs tighten, struggling for a normal breath.
Asher and Gabriel might be the last remaining hybrids of this world.
Steps slosh through the water, sweeping waves onto my calves. The noise halts, and I can sense someone at my side. Wet lashes bring my attention up to Asher.
Quietly he waits, his arm lightly brushing mine, his Crimson Sword dipping into the water. The image of the other glowing Crimson Sword disappearing into ocean flits through my mind.
I sniffle as I look back out at the ocean. He’s gone, though.
“He was a good friend,” Asher finally says in a gravelly voice.
I nod adamantly, blinking back steadily growing emotions that are clouding my chest and mind.
“It’s okay to have loved him,” Asher says in a whisper. I glance to him but his silver eyes remain on the horizon, as if he can still see the hybrid there.
My fingers slip into his, pulling his attention down to me. A breath shakes from my lungs as I cling to his warm hand.
“He was a good friend. I did love him.” He swallows slowly, nodding just slightly. “He reminded me of you, and in a way he reminded me of me.” The uncertain feelings I always seem to have define everything about Declan. He wanted acceptance in an unaccepting world.If the world had been different, would he have been different as well?I think of the way he accepted me and understood me when I was most alone in my life. “I loved him like family. He was my family.”
Asher pulls me to his chest, his strong arms sweeping away the drowning sorrow that is rising in me. He presses a soft kiss to my temple and whispers into my hair, “He loved you, too.”
My lungs falter, hating that I failed the one mystic who might have needed me most.
