The Last Witch: Volume One

Those words have me clutching at my chest and struggling to breathe as I sob desperately. I shake my head over and over. He’s lying. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t.

He catches me in his arms as I fall and eases me gently to the ground where I collapse into his arms, bury my face in his chest and cry harder than I’ve ever cried before. Because now I know.

It was me.

∞∞∞

The heat had broken, and we were experiencing a summer storm like no other. The sun hadn’t reached beyond the clouds in three days. The rain hadn’t eased one bit, and I hadn’t seen Toby for the last week when Harry hurled open the door to the library where I was practising the piano with Mr Simmons. Harry stood in the doorway, filling it with his enormous frame. His beady little eyes didn’t leave me as he slowly stalked closer. I remember how afraid I felt because he was angry. Very angry. But not his usual yelling, screaming, angry. This was an eerie, controlled fury that seeped into the air so much you could taste it. I stood and slowly backed up until I bumped into Mr Simmons, who, ever the loyalist to Harry, held me in place so I couldn’t escape.

Harry towered over me. His nostrils flaring and his lip twitching.

I asked what I’d done to make him this way, I’d actually been behaving of late. Much more than usual, because I’d felt so poorly. Heat stroke, I’d thought. Exhaustion from the immense heat I was enduring in my stifling attic room.

He asked me, rather boldly, an unusually personal question.

When did I last have a bleed?

When I asked him what he meant, he growled in my face, ‘Period. When was your last period?’

I remember laughing because of the whole situation. How my uncle, who only spoke to me when he was screaming, was asking me about my monthlies. But when he continued to glare and continued to wait for me to actually answer, I thought back. My stomach hit the floor and only then did I notice the box of tampons he had clasped in his hand. The unopened, unused box. I hadn’t needed this month’s supply because, to my horror, I realised, I hadn’t had my period this month. Oh hell, or last month. My eyes widened in horror and I felt faint. Harry grabbed my arm and hauled me speechlessly to the ground floor bathroom where on the toilet lid, waiting for me, was a box.

A pregnancy test.

He watched as I peed on the stick and with bated breath, I waited. The first line appeared and then, so did the second.

I was pregnant with Toby’s child.

Harry didn’t say a word as he steered his view from the stick in his hands, to me. And then, he punched me. He’d never punched me before. I’d received many backhands, and I was familiar with his belt and walking cane. But he always thought a punch was too much to deliver to a woman. But not this time. I went down hard. He’d busted my lip and damned near dislocated my jaw. Instinctively, as I pulled myself up, I wrapped my arms across my belly, protecting the baby I’d only just learnt was there. And despite the shock and fear I was feeling, I knew, beyond a doubt that I had to protect her. Her. I never thought of my child as a boy even though I only had her inside me for such a short time.

He demanded to know who the father was. He refused to let me leave until I did. It took three more punches to the face until I started to talk. I had to protect my child. It was all that mattered, so I sang. I answered every question he threw at me.

He asked me if the father was a witch.

I said yes.

He asked if I loved him.

I said yes.

He asked if he loved me.

I said yes.

That angered him even more. It makes sense to me now. The baby would be born with magic. He hated magic.

Harry wrenched me to my feet and threw me as hard as he could out into the hall. I left one arm covering my belly and used my other to break my fall. I heard the snap of my wrist and screamed at the pain it caused.

Harry didn’t care. Mr Simmons neither as he stood watching his employer hurl his pregnant niece around the house.

When Harry shoved me into my bedroom, he tossed the pregnancy test at my feet. He called me stupid. Selfish. He called me a whore. He said I had no idea what I’d done. How my actions had put everyone in danger and that there was no way he was going to let all his hard work at keeping me away from the world go to waste. Not only that, but to bring another witch into it. He told me he was sending for Mr Jennings. That he would take care of it.

Mr Jennings was a half-rate vet who tended to Harry’s dogs and horses on the cheap. For a vast increase in wages, he would rid me of my…problem. That’s what Harry said. That’s what he thought of my baby. Nothing more than a problem he wanted a butcher to rid me of. That night, Toby came. I told him. I showed him the test and pleaded with him to help us get away before my uncle’s vet could terminate our baby. Undoubtedly, the father of my little girl would feel the same. Surely Toby would level this house to the floor at the mere suggestion of such a thing being done to the woman he loved. And to his child.

But that isn’t what happened. Not at all.

Toby flew into a rage. He trashed my room. Snapped the pregnancy test in two. Pushed me away from him when I reached out for his hand. This was my mess, he said. He had given me the pill, if I’d forgotten to take it, it was my fault. He said he didn’t want a baby. Not with me. Never with me.

And then he left.

The pain I felt when I watched him climb out the window was indescribable. But it wasn’t my abandonment that broke my heart. It wasn’t his anger to me that had me suddenly loathing him. It was what his refusal to help meant for her. For our child. He had turned his back on her. Effectively sentenced her to death. I remember watching the rain come in through the still open window. The darkness only giving way to lightning as the storm continued for its third night. And I remember thinking…no. I won’t let this happen. I won’t let anyone touch my child.

I pulled on a jumper. Pulled up the hood and went to the window. As I looked out into the night, I couldn’t see the man who had just fled from us. I couldn’t see anything, not until another streak of lightning shot across the sky. I saw his small frame making its way quickly across the vast fields away from us. Away from me. I watched until he disappeared.

And now, so would I.

But instead of fleeing through the open window before me, I hesitated. Fear gripped me. The same fear that had me trapped in this place for all these years. The fear of what lies beyond these walls.

Hunters.

And so, I lingered. One leg over the ledge, one still planted on my bedroom floor. I don’t know how long I stood there. And I have no idea what I did next. Because the next memory I have is waking up in my uncle’s hidden cell beneath the house with chains around my wrists and too many cuts and bruises to count. But the most significant pain of all was when I lifted my top and saw the mass of heavy bruising across my stomach and the two wounds which looked like cauterised cuts. I knew, without needing to hear it from a gloating Harry, that I was empty. That my baby was gone. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why. And as Harry closed the heavy door to the prison I was destined to remain in for another two years, I let out a scream that contained all my grief. A cry so filled with heartbreak that I wanted to die then and there.

Over the years, Harry had told me the story of how I had fled in the night. Of how he looked for me and finally found me. He told me I’d gone crazy. Murdered people. Butchered them. That if it weren’t for him, I would be with hHunters right now. Not here. He told me he didn’t know what had happened to my baby. That it was gone before he found me. But now I know. I came back. I let him take her.

Harry lied.

∞∞∞

Toby lifts my face and wipes my tears. ‘I’m so sorry. I told you that you wouldn’t want to know.’

‘Why didn’t you come back for me?’ I cry ‘Why didn’t you stop me?’

‘I did come back for you. I followed you. But I was too late. Harry and Simmons told me that there was a complication. That you had a bleed and died.’ His eyes glimmer with a deep sadness. Like the idea of my dying hurts him too deeply to ever put into words. ‘I was banished from my coven. Gabriel and Grayson knew I’d taken the journal. They knew I’d taken all the money I could get my hands on. They were looking for me, and with you gone there was no point in sticking around. I left. I was heartbroken. I’d lost the woman I loved and my child. I was drowning in grief and guilt.’ His hands settle each side of my face as he stares into my eyes. ‘I should have taken you as soon as you told me about the baby. I’m sorry that I didn’t.’

He’s apologising to me? Why? It’s all my fault. This is all on me. I deserve those two years of isolated hell. I deserve a lot more than that for my pathetic cowardice.

‘When I heard that you were alive and at The Orchard, I came back to take you away so we could be together again. But instead of you being happy to see me, you were with him. You’d moved on to the man who ruined my life.’ He takes my hand and lightly kisses my knuckles. ‘Come with me,’ he says. ‘Let me look after you. Let’s try this again. Let’s be us again.’

The rain is falling so hard, I can’t tell the difference between my tears and the rain. I’m so confused. So lost. I feel like there’s no gravity and I’m spinning erratically into orbit with no means of ever returning to earth. I can’t cope with all this. It’s too much. Too confusing. I don’t know what to do, how to feel or how I will ever get over the revelation that I’m the one responsible for losing my child.

I bury my face in my hands and let out a loud pain-filled scream before slumping forwards and sobbing uncontrollably. This ache I have in my heart for the baby I lost explodes, just like it did the day I awoke in the cellar.

‘Lilly?’ he says softly, pulling my hands away from my face and looking at me. ‘I lost her too. We need each other to get through this. To mourn. Together.’

I sink into his chest. A place that has always been so familiar, and cry. He holds me close, his face in my neck. I cling to him, just like I used to, and he tethers me to the ground.

‘It’s my fault, Toby. You should hate me. Everything I’ve done…you should hate me.’

He lifts my face and looks into my eyes.

‘I could never, ever hate you. I love you,’ he says in an absolute. ‘I always have and I always will. Three years of devotion I gave you. I know I didn’t do it right. I made mistakes. I was cruel and violent. But I swear to you, I will never raise a hand to you or force you to do anything you don’t want to do again. Living for two years thinking you were dead, it killed me in more ways than I thought a man could die. But now you’re here.’ He rests his hand on my rapidly beating heart. ‘You’re right here and I know I never want to let you go again.’ He slides his hand behind my ear. ‘I forgive you for what you did. I forgive you for being with Gabriel. I forgive you for choosing them over me. And I forgive you for what you did to our baby. Come back to me. There’s nothing about you that I don’t know. There are no secrets you need to keep from me because I lived them all with you. I accept you and everything you are. No one else will. Don’t you see that?’

He leans in and rests his forehead against mine.

‘You don’t need to pretend with me. I know who you truly are and I love you.’ He kisses my lips. Just a quick peck as he watches and waits for me to accept him. He leans in again, kissing my lips for a fraction of a second longer and this time, my lips kiss him back. The third time he leans in, I don’t hold back. The damaged girl desperate for a connection and the dangerous man desperate for her. It’s like it was. His kiss is a hungry, passionate embrace that I’ve missed. And for a moment, it’s just as it was before everything fell to shit.

But then, something clicks inside. An image. Me in the barn, covered in blood as my hair turns white. I Broke in the barn. Not at Harrys.

I pull away.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asks, caressing my face and searching it, hoping to see what I’m thinking.

‘You’re lying to me,’ I whisper as I struggle to understand.

‘What?’ he asks, with a nervous laugh.

‘You’re lying. I-I Broke in the barn. Me and Gabriel saw it. When he looked into my memories. We saw it together-’

‘Gabriel,’ he snarls. ‘Fucking Gabriel. It’s always him, isn’t it?’ he says, anger piercing his voice. ‘Good boy Gabriel with his pretty fucking eyes and sad little smiles.’ His fingers tighten in my hair as he fills with anger at the mere mention of his brother’s name. ‘You’re mine. Not his. Mine!’

‘Let me go.’ I try to push his hands away once more, but he wraps his fingers in my hair and holds on. ‘Toby… stop it.’ He leans in, his mouth going to mine once more. ‘Get off!’ I tell him, but he still comes in. His lips land on mine and all I can do is dodge his kiss which is getting more and more aggressive. ‘I SAID GET OFF ME!’

His face hardens, and all the kindness that he put there has gone. He tugs sharply on my hair, yanking my head back and starts screaming in my face like a madman.

‘NO!’ he yells ‘I’M IN YOUR HEART WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!’ Another yank of my hair. ‘YOU DON’T GET TO STOP LOVING ME. NOT UNTIL I LET YOU.’ Another yank and he starts climbing on top of me, pushing me into the ground. ‘I’M DEEP UNDER THAT SKIN OF YOURS AND IF YOU THINK I’M GOING TO STAND ASIDE AND LET SOMEONE ELSE CLAIM YOU AFTER ALL THE YEARS I GAVE YOU,’ he leans into my face and snarls. ‘Then you can think again, Red.’ He breathes fast and fiercely as he hovers over me, effectively pinning me beneath him. ‘Now you will kiss me, you will tell me that you love me and you will leave with me. You owe me that much at least.’

He’s insane. He’s genuinely insane if he thinks that this is how love works.

‘I want you to listen to these words, Toby, and know I mean them with every fibre of my being,’ I speak calmly and with absolute conviction. ‘I don’t want you anymore. And I don’t love you anymore. And I know that you are lying to me.’

‘I don’t care,’ he says back, just as definite. ‘I love you, and that’s all that matters.’

‘I’m not leaving here with you. I’m staying. With Gabriel. And you will tell me the fucking truth!’

His hands go to my throat and tighten. He cuts off my air entirely and shakes me before leaning in my face as I try desperately to get the smallest bit of air into my lungs.

‘I told you, didn’t I? That I’ll see you dead before I see you with someone else.’ He waits for me to speak, but I can’t. I can’t breathe! ‘DIDN’T I?!’ he yells, throttling me hard. I claw at his hands, but it does nothing to release his grip. I go at his face with my nails. I scratch right across his eye and down his cheek. I draw blood, but he doesn’t stop.

‘YOU’RE MINE!’ he screams, wringing my neck even harder. ‘MINE OR DEAD! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU!’

I have to get him off. I have to! He’s going to kill me. For real this time. My magic pulses inside me as I channel it and use it against him. But no fire comes. There’s no hurling of his body through the air. My magic doesn’t come from my chest. Not this time. It comes from my head. A heavy, painful throbbing at the base of my skull is accompanied by the sensation of a red-hot poker through the centre of my brain, and somehow, I don’t know how but somehow, I’m inside his head. It feels different than it did with Gabriel because this time, I’m not welcome. I feel the resistance like a wall slowly closing in on me, pushing me further and further away from the memory I seem to have found myself in. But I’m stronger. Stronger than I even knew. I need to know the truth. Nothing will stop me. I push that invisible wall away and walk into his memory with ease.

I wish I hadn’t.

I’m standing in a place I know well even though I’ve never been here before. Not that I remember anyway. Piles of hay and broken farming machinery line the wooden walls. It’s raining. Drops of water fall through the cracks in the roof. The beams are slightly off their centre. The same as every time I dream about this place.

The Miller’s barn.

I look down at my feet, expecting to see the familiar coating of thick red blood. But it’s not blood I see. It’s me. I’m looking at myself laying on the floor of the barn with my wrists bound above my head by chains attached to the floor. Someone’s holding my feet down as I try to kick them away. It’s a girl.

The girl.

Toby’s other woman. The hood of her jumper is up, and her face is covered, but I know it’s her. Her hair falls out the front as it did when he had sex with her in front of me. Around us are six men. Their arms are folded as they encircle us. Watching with an eerie silence.

Standing over me…is Toby.

‘You can’t have a baby Lilly,’ he says. ‘I can’t let you.’

I see tears falling down his cheeks. He looks like he’s in so much pain, so conflicted and afraid. Very unlike the Toby I know. I can tell this isn’t a ploy. This isn’t him pretending. This is genuine. I can feel it. I look down at the terrified version of me lying helpless at his feet.

‘She’s yours!’ I cry. ‘She’s your baby. Please, Toby. I’m sorry I left. I won’t do it again. I swear. I’ll come with you if that’s what you want. We can be happy! Don’t listen to that woman. Listen to me!’

‘We can’t have this baby,’ he repeats, shaking his head and sniffing as he continues to cry. He takes a step back.

‘If you don’t want her, fine!’ I sob. ‘You’ll never see us again. Please, please don’t hurt my baby. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything just, please. Let me go. Please…’ I look up at Toby who’s lifting up his foot. It hovers directly over my exposed belly. The version of me on the floor looks up at him and pleads one last time, ‘She’s all I have. Don’t take her away. Toby…please.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I am so sorry. But you can’t have this baby. You can never have a baby.’ His eyes start to change as his heartbreak seems to take over. They’re getting darker. Turning a deep hazel, like they were in Gabriel’s memory before he Broke. He’s returning back to his former self before he suffered a Break.

The girl notices too and panics.

‘FOCUS! DO IT!’ she screams. ‘YOU HAVE TO!’

He blinks, and in a second, he returns back to the cold, hard version of him I know all too well. His eyes remain lilac. He raises his foot higher still.

‘HELP ME!’ I scream at the men. ‘HELP ME!’

But they don’t. Not a single one of them.

I watch it with as much horror now, as I did then. The version of me on the floor screams. She pleads for him to stop and although I know that this is nothing more than Toby’s memory, I too scream and charge forwards as he thrust his boot towards my stomach.

I don’t see the impact.

But I know it happened.

∞∞∞

The memory disappears before I can see the brutal attack and I’m back in the forest with his hands around my throat and the rain battering our bodies.

I look up at him. His eyes are wide in shock. His face even paler than usual and in the momentary lapse of concentration, he’s forgotten to keep his grip on my throat.

‘It was you,’ I whisper.

He lets me go and scrambles away, desperate to distance himself from me. I sit and look at him in utter disbelief.

‘That…that wasn’t what it looked like,’ he says in a panic. ‘How did you do that?’

I get to my feet and look at him. He jumps up to his and takes a step back. My breathing’s slow and deep. Every muscle in my whole body is rigid and filled with adrenaline.

‘That wasn’t-’

‘It was you. Not Harry. Not me. You.’ I take small steps towards him, and he almost falls over he stumbles away from me so fast. ‘Those men I killed, they helped you murder our baby. You had your tart pin me down so you could kick our baby to death, you evil, manipulative…I’m going to kill you.’

I hear the yelling from the fight getting louder. They’re getting closer to wherever we are but right now I couldn’t care less. If the Traitors think they’re going to get between us, if the Nomads believe they are going to capture Toby, they can think again. He’s mine.

He’s a dead man.

Toby looks back over his shoulder towards the noise of the battle, but we’re still alone. For now.

I hold out my hand.

‘Give me the journal,’ I say in the coldest tone I think I’ve ever had. I’m filled with anger and hatred. Every inch of me is consumed by it. My magic’s screaming, demanding freedom. Demanding blood. I hold it back, stopping it from spilling out of me. I have it under control because I’m in control. I see with a clarity that I’ve never had before.

Toby Smith has something I need. When I get it, he will die.

‘You’re new to your mind magic,’ he says, taking another step back. ‘What you saw wasn’t real.’

But I know it was. It was another snippet of the missing six weeks. A fragment that tells me everything I need to know. I didn’t want that baby gone. I wanted her. He took her in the most brutal way possible. And his other woman helped. She held me down and helped him. Those men too. Suddenly, I feel no remorse over what I did. None. If they were here now, I’d tear them apart all over again.

I take a step towards him. There’s no fear in me. There’s no doubt. For every cumbersome step back he makes, I take a solid, confident step forwards. I have nothing else to lose.

‘Give me the journal,’ I repeat.

‘No,’ he replies. Although I can hear the nervousness in his voice as I descend on him slowly, his face still looks as composed as always. Like I’m the one being crazy, and his job is to calm me down.

‘Oh, Toby…I wasn’t asking. I was telling. You will give me the journal.’

The trees around us erupt in flames from the roots to their tips. The rocks and boulders around us rise off the floor. My fire snakes around my wrists, slithering up my arms like serpents. Now his eyes narrow on me. Now he’s getting angry.

‘That fire… that’s mine. I gave it to you.’ He creates his fire too. ‘You’re nothing without me, Red. Just a shell. A victim. A pathetic girl swinging from a rope. You think Gabriel actually wants you? With your scars and fear of being touched? Does he know about Ryan? Huh? You think he would want you after hearing about that?’ I stay quiet as he goes off on one. Spewing venom at me, desperate to upset me. To make me cry or lose focus, but I won’t. Nothing he says matters to me. Not anymore. ‘I did what I did for a reason.’

‘What possible reason could you have?’

‘Because I saw you die!’ he says. ‘I had a vision soon after we met, of you, pregnant. And dying. I couldn’t let you die. I love you too much!’

‘That’s your excuse? You did it to save my life? What about the cuts you made? What about the scars on my belly?’

‘I had to make sure that you could never get pregnant again. And now you can’t. I’m sorry it went down like that, but I had no choice. You wouldn’t agree to an abortion!’

The fires grow in height.  The roots of the trees begin to groan. He glances around him nervously.

‘When I’m the Coven leader, I want you by my side. That’s the plan. Me and you, but if you don’t fall into line right now, I swear…no matter how much I love you I will put you down myself.’

He stops and waits for my reaction, but I just continue to stand there with my arms alight and my breathing slow and steady. I have nothing else to say to him. I have no more emotions to feel other than need. I need to tear him apart.

‘I did it to save you!’

‘I’m going to kill you. Slowly. Painfully.’

He looks at the forest that blazes around us. Fierce black and white flames that smother the trees and then back to me.

‘So that’s it? You choose them over me? You choose Gabriel over me?’ he asks.

‘No, Toby’ I reply. ‘I choose me.’

With a roar, my flames become a deep red all at once. The heat intensifies tenfold as the flames climb higher above the tops of the trees into the air, making a ceiling of fire above our heads.

Without another word, I hold my hands close to my chest before opening my palms and shooting the most powerful stream of red fire straight at him. He reacts quickly. Doing the same with his black and white fire and they clash between us.

‘LILLY, STOP!’ he yells as he struggles to stop my red fire crawling closer. It consumes his flames bit by bit as I continue to force it straight at him. His feet slide back in the mud as the force of it starts to overwhelm him, and I know he can’t hold me off much longer. Especially when this isn’t half as draining on me as it seems to be for him.

‘LILLY…’ he stares at our fire. ‘PLEASE!’

‘Please?’ I say curiously. ‘Please what?’

‘STOP!’ His feet slide back further as my red flame claims yet more of his white. He looks behind him to a tree a few feet away covered in my magical fire. My new red flame. My flame, not his. I step forwards. More of the white is consumed by my red, and his feet slide back again. He’s no more than a foot away from the flaming tree, and there’s less than a foot of his white now.

‘YOU CAN’T KILL ME.’

‘Yes. I can. I really, really can,’ I say simply.

My red fire is at his fingertips. The tree an inch from his back. He looks between the two, and for the first time ever I see real fear on his face. I see my fire reflected in his eyes. That, and the realisation that he’s about to die.

‘IF YOU KILL ME, THEY DIE TOO!’ he yells.

The sound of the battle is getting louder as they all head towards us. Nomads and Traitors alike. But I don’t care. The devil and his hellish army could be coming this way and I wouldn’t flinch. I wouldn’t stop.

‘YOU KILL ME,’ he yells. ‘GABRIEL WILL DIE! COLLINS, GRAYSON… THINK ABOUT IT. YOU CAN’T KILL ME WITHOUT LOSING EVERYONE YOU CARE ABOUT!’

He looks between me and the fire both at his back and his front. But still, I hold my ground.

He takes a few deep breathes and in a much calmer voice says, ‘They’re fighting. Can you hear them? The yelling? The gunfire? They need your help. Gabriel needs your help. What if Gabriel gets hurt? What if he gets shot?’

I look over to the sounds of the fighting. I’m filled with the need for destruction, his destruction, and I’m so close. There’s barely any white left. My red fire’s so close and I know I could cover him in it and watch him burn.

But he’s right.

Killing him will kill Gabriel, and I’ll be damned if he takes anyone else I love from me.

I lower my hand. My fire fades. The trees extinguish in a second. He slumps back against it with a sigh of relief.

But I’m not done.

I walk to him, grab his head, and with a yell of utter hatred, I dive back into his mind.

I know what I want. I know what I need. Finding the journal is all that matters now. It drives every instinct. Takes over every thought and as I hold his head, the answer comes in the quickest of flashes.

When I hear Collins in the distance yelling my name, I let him go. I hear Collins yell again. But this time it’s an anguished cry filled with pain.

I’ve neglected the battle for too long. I’ve abandoned not only the man I love but my best friend’s partner. My friend.

I look at Toby who’s staring at me with wide, panicked eyes. I can’t kill him. But I can’t just let him go. Leave him to disappear into the shadows again. I can’t let him get away with this. He knows I know where the journal is now. If he gets to it before I do, I may never get my hands on it.

‘I told Gabriel about Ryan. I told him about the maid. He knows. And he still loves me. Fuck you, Tobias Kendryk.’ I slam my hand on his face and create my fire. He screams as I burn my handprint into his flesh. Just like he did to me all those years ago on my thigh. As he yells, I reach out my hand and summon a large grey rock and slam it hard into his face, knocking out several teeth and breaking his jaw. He falls to the floor and looks up at me. I pull out his leg before lifting my foot and stomping down with all my might on his knee. I hear a stomach-turning snap as he shrieks, grabbing his leg and choking on his own blood. I raise the rock again and bring it down hard on his skull with an almighty yell. He falls to his side. He’s out. Completely unconscious.

I look at the bloody broken mess of the man I loved. The devil.

‘Don’t go anywhere,’ I tell his unconscious body before I turn and begin the long run back to the camp.

He’ll be out for a while, and if he does wake up before the Nomads can get to him, he won’t get far. Not on that leg.

I have to get back to Gabriel. Part of my heart has been broken for good. I need to see him. I feel like I’m slipping away. I can’t give in to my Break. I can’t. If I could just see his face, I know I’ll be okay.

The heartbreak will just have to wait.