Orion walks back out with our daughter in his arms; I can hear her hungrily slurping on her bottle, gulping it down. Imogen looks over at him.
“Don’t let her gulp it; she will bring it back up,” Imogen says, and no sooner than she says it, she spews over the front of the blanket she is wrapped in. Orion stares down at her, his face worried as Theo walks over to him.
“Here, I will feed her. Hun, go find her some clothes and a diaper. Orion, go help Evelyn with Ryland,” Theo orders.
Orion hands our daughter over, grabs Ryland, forces him to his feet, and hauls him up the stairs. Tobias and Imogen follow, but turn into the nursery, and I can see they need the distraction over everything that has happened; something to distract them from the pain. That is our daughter, but I’m not going to say no to them; they know what they are doing more than any of us.
Turning the shower on, Orion helps me strip off Ryland, and I push him in the shower, but he stands there, staring off at the tiled wall.
“I broke him,” Ryland says, making me look at him, and I realize he is talking about Thaddeus, whose emotions are so strong that they are almost suffocating us.
“He just needs time. She was his sister,” Orion whispers, and I notice he, too, is trying to keep himself together; he is just better at hiding his true feelings.
“I just don’t understand how it’s possible; aren’t you all immortal?” I ask, hating that I can’t understand any of this; maybe understanding would make it easier.
“She burned herself out. She used all of it when the bomb went off. After it went off, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t burning until I looked up and saw her standing there taking it all, absorbing it, so it didn’t touch me.” Ryland chokes, and collapses on the ground in a heap, his head goes to his knees as sobs wrack his body.
“Amara’s magic is tied to her immortality; Thaddeus’ isn’t. His is different. Like mine, it has a life force of its own; Amara’s burned out, and so did she,” Imogen says, leaning against the door frame. Guilt hits me that she overheard us talking. She must have read it on my face as she shakes her head, her eyes teary. “It’s okay, Evie; I know you have questions. As sick as it sounds, I am all too familiar with death. I just wasn’t expecting it to be my own daughter’s,” she says, looking up at the ceiling, willing her tears to go. “This is going to destroy him,” she says, shaking her head, and I realize she is good at shoving her emotions back now that she is over her initial shock. She is stronger than I ever could be if our roles are reversed; I would prefer death than to be without my child.
Imogen’s phone rings and she glances down at it in her hand; a hiccuped sob leaves her lips. “I need to take this; it’s my sister,” she says, and I can hear the unspoken emotion she is trying to hide as she continues to look at the screen. She answers it but says nothing as she looks to the ceiling, fanning her eyes with her other hand, taking a deep breath.
“Hey, sis,” is all she says as she struggles to find the words to tell her sister her niece is gone. Imogen walks out, leaving us.
Thaddeus
I run.
I don’t know what else to do. My little sister is lying limp in my arms as I cradle her. Her bubbly, carefree, happy self is no longer with us. She saved him, gave her own life to save my mate because she knew I couldn’t live without him.
But how does she expect me to live without her? She is my baby sister, we fight and bicker, but at the end of the day, she is always there. She is my first friend, and was my only friend growing up. We are each other’s rock. She knows all my secrets, and I know she will keep them safe; nothing I ever do is unforgivable to her. She loves me despite my many flaws, despite the pain I cause her, she still loves me; loves me enough to throw her life away for me.
I sit on the mountain with her, which overlooks my home. My parents are there with my daughter and my mates, yet I can’t bear to see the heartbreak on their faces. How do I face them, knowing I am the reason for her death? All my mistakes and grievances are coming back to haunt them and me, yet my sister paid the ultimate price.
A price that is for only me to take. I sit her on my lap; life is drained from her face, and gold veins litter her skin from where her magic bled out of her. She shouldn’t have to pay for my sins; none of them should have to.
My mother, though, is the one I worry about having to face; how can she ever love me after knowing I am the reason for the death of the one child that is actually good, pure within herself?
Things can’t end this way; I can’t live with this void, forever lingering and haunting me for the rest of my life; live with the knowledge that she died for me; live without her. I will give it up for them. Before, I couldn’t see how much damage I was causing, stuck within myself. It is selfish. It is selfish to think I could control the very thing my mother and Astral tried to protect the world from; I now know that none of it is worth losing her or my family over.
For the first time, my mind is clear; the usual ramblings of the darkness creeping over me are now nothing but distant whispers of my insanity. Now, I have found a new purpose, a reason to give it up and not just for Amara.
I am unwilling to lose anyone else to it, not my family and not my daughter. Nothing is more important than her, not even my mates, and for her, I will give it up. It is like trading my unstable insanity for a new sense of clarity, and it gives me a new will to live, only it is too late for my sister. But I can do this one thing for her. Nothing has felt righter than this decision because I made it myself.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I look up my Aunt’s phone number and dial it.
I wait.