Please, please, please.
My feet start moving towards the hallway. Please be okay. I can’t leave without him. I won’t leave without him. I don’t know what to do about Liam but I know I can take him. I can. My panic goes up a notch when I’m standing outside the door I went through last night. The door that leads down to the dungeons. I don’t let myself think too much about it as I wrench it open. I’m hit with the stench of blood and my heart starts to beat even faster than it already was. Goddess. The stench is strong even from all the way up here.
Please, please, please.
When I get to the bottom of the stairs, Liam isn’t anywhere in sight. I squint through the darkness and my foot bumps into something. I look down and a scream dies in my throat when my gaze lands on Liam’s mangled body. His eyes stare without seeing, his neck is bent at an unnatural angle, and his face is unrecognizable but I know it’s him by the color of his hair.
I rush past him, unable to stomach it anymore. The door is open and I take a deep breath as I try to prepare myself. I don’t know what I’ll say when I see him. I don’t know what I’m going to find inside the dungeons. Who made Liam that way? Was it Devin? Or…. or … the question has me pushing forward into the dungeons.
I search the room until my gaze lands on where Ethan should have been. The chains hung from the ceiling and lean against the wall and I looked around. Devin was nowhere in sight and neither was Ethan. Had Devin taken him? No, that didn’t make sense. The only logical explanation is someone was here.
I lift my nose and try to smell who it could have been but I can’t pick it up. I can’t tell. Korra hasn’t spoken to me. My wolf won’t help me. I don’t have time to linger here, I need to figure out where he went.
If my guess is correct the only person who could have gotten him is Odis or Darci. How? When? Who? Was there anyone else with him? If they were here, why didn’t they come for me? Had Ethan told them to leave me behind?
The only way I was going to find him is if I linked him. I needed to but I couldn’t. I couldn’t find the courage to reach out to him. I don’t know what I was going to say. What would I say to him? Would he answer me? After what he saw last night? After what I said? Would he forgive me? Did he leave or was he still here? Had he given up on me? Or was he looking for me?
I shake my head. No. If he was looking for me, he would have come upstairs to me. He would have seen him already. So… where was he? Had he left? Had he gone back home? My heart dropped at the thought but I also felt hopeful. If he was outside, he would be safe. It meant he was okay.
I looked down the hall, heading towards the sitting room, my eyes locked on the door as I grew closer. Once upon a time, in another time, this door kept me locked in. It hadn’t been this door but the door from the past. It had been hard to open, hard to push through. As I passed the chairs that Mavy and I used to jump on, I hesitated. Mavy. I pushed the thought from my mind. I couldn’t trust her just yet. I couldn’t go and find her. I needed to get out of here. I needed… I needed…
The sound of a wolfsbane grenade goes off and I freeze at the sound. A blinding light flashes through the windows. For a second, all I see is nothingness and I try to blink it away. Goddess. Everything comes back into focus. Remembering myself, I rush for the. door, my fingers tremble as I wrap my hand around the doorknob.
Will it be open, or will it be barred like in the past? Inhaling through my nose, and exhaling out of my mouth, I push the door open. I gasp as it easily opens up for me. No strength is needed. This time, it opens for me.
The sight that unfolds in front of me leaves me breathless. I’ve seen it so many times but it didn’t seem real. It hadn’t felt real and yet, here it was. The same scene I’d seen night after night but no matter how many times I blinked or squeezed my eyes shut, it didn’t go away.
I had done everything I could to prevent this from happening, from preventing war, and here I was, looking at it. It had happened. Everything I had done to stop it hadn’t worked. Had everything I had done been for nothing? Had it all been useless? Had choosing my friends and family over my own feelings been pointless? No, I had killed Shane but… the war still commenced. If it was all going to come to this anyway then should I have chosen myself?
The selfish thought left a bitter taste on my tongue. Did I wish I could have picked myself? Yes. It was selfish but it was true. If it was all going to bring me back here anyway, back to the beginning, I wish I had picked myself and my selfish desires. I wish I had done what I wanted.
The war that I had tried to prevent was happening in front of my eyes and there was nothing I could do about it. Bodies littered the ground and some were piled on top of each other. I couldn’t help the tears that welled in my eyes as I looked around. My heart broke for Half Moon. This was their home and they were defending it.