Lucy’s POV
It took about five heartbeats for the admiral’s head to give up its place atop her neck, and fall to the ground with a soft thud, rolling across the ground until it came to a stop at Tessa’s feet. The little girl’s eyes bulged, and she shuffled away from the stiff hands of her captors.
The sword slid from my hand, because I no longer had the power to hold on to it. The smell of my own burning flesh made me incredibly light headed, and I dropped to my haunches to catch my breath. I was still a little bit in disbelief.
Reality finally caught up to me when the admiral’s body dropped to the ground, raising a thin cloud of dust around it. Dead. Lifeless. It baffled me to think that just a few moments back, I had been caught in a duel with her, forced to fight without my usual strength. I didn’t even know how to use a sword, but in the heat of the moment, instinct had won, and now, I was victorious.
I was . . . victorious.
“Rosa! Rosa!”
The name being repeated over and over brought me out of my confused haze. Yes, Rosa. I had to keep her from dying. With a shocked gasp, I rushed to my feet and went towards her body, seeing Tessa already by her side, sobbing as she called my friends.
“Rosa!” I called out to her immediately I reached her. Forgetting the state of my own wounds and checking her body. The sight of her wound up close made my heart tremble, but I pushed aside my fear and looked into her eyes. “Rosa . . . Please, let me know you’re still in there.”
She was so still. So cold. Her eyes seemed to take forever to shift from the sky down to my face. Dried blood clung to the skin round her mouth, and her skin was as pale as snow. “Lucy.”
“I’m here, okay? I’m here. We’ll get you help-”
“It’s okay, Lucy. I know that it’s time for me to go and meet my family,” she said. Her voice had become like ash . . . tired and broken. It sounded like death itself. “I didn’t want to go before you put down that bitch.”
Despite the state of things, I chuckled. It came out broken and rough, but it was a laugh nonetheless. Tears fell down my face as I squeezed my eyes together. “Don’t curse.”
She blinked slowly. Her lips curled into a small smile. “It helps me to not think about the pain so much. I almost can’t feel anything.”
I wrapped my arms around her strangely, trying to find a way to lift her from the ground and take her to the pack doctor where she could get some help. But the moment I put weight on my torso, hot-white pain shot through my injured flesh, and I had to get down on my knees beside her.
Around us, Shadow Howl members stood, quietly watching us. They weren’t attacking or showing any form of hostility. In fact, it was like they didn’t know what to do with themselves anymore.
Because I had killed their leader.
I lifted my head to one nearby and shouted at him. “What are you looking at! Can you not see that she needs help?” I clutched my bleeding side as the world spun again, barely catching myself. “Take her to the pack doctor.”
Katrina was still the pack doctor, because no matter what had happened to us, there still needed to be doctors who could attend to us. She was one of the lucky ones who had been spared.
None of them moved, which infuriated me even more. “Didn’t you hear me!”
They merely looked at themselves slowly, and continued standing in place, watching me. They were looking at Rosa. Everyone present was looking at Rosa.
My heart started to sink as I turned to look at her again. “Rosa . . .?”
She still faced me, but her lips now hung slightly open. Her eyes, which had been focused on me moments ago, had now frozen in place, glazed over by tears that she never got to shed. She just . . . sat there, as still as a statue. Silent as a stone grave.
I leaned in to touch her face, hoping that I was merely having a nightmare and would wake up from it any moment from now. “Stop, Rosa. Don’t do this. Please.”
Silence.
“Rosa . . . Please.”
No answer.
That was when the first cry finally dropped from my lips. My fingers dug gently into the skin of her face, smearing dirt and blood on her.
“Rosa . . .” I started to say, but I was once again hit with another wave of dizziness. This one was stronger than the rest, and was clearly sent to throw me off guard. “Ro . . .” The remaining words mixed up in my throat and refused to come out of my mouth.
Next thing I knew, I was down in the sand beside Rosa, holding on to her cold, still hand. Her name kept ringing in my head over and over again, but my whole body no longer obeyed me. It had finally succumbed to my wounds.
But still, the hot tears running down my face didn’t stop coming down. It came down as rivers running down my face, and blurring my vision until all that was left was the darkness.
–
“She’s dead,” I heard someone say from beside me. “She was dead before she even got here.”
‘Who?’ I wanted to ask, but it was like I was in the dark, with no one to talk or reach out to. It couldn’t be Rosa. I couldn’t have lost her too, or I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
“But I won . . .” I wanted to say. “I won . . . for us. You’re supposed to live.”
Her last words flashed through my mind. “I know that it’s time for me to return to my family . . .”
I didn’t want her to leave. There were so many things we hadn’t done together yet as friends.
I sent my prayers to the moon goddess. “Please Rosa . . . Live . . .” I begged.