The Spanish girl
He knew he couldn't help it, but guilt wretched his stomach like a cool dagger. He wanted to leave, be anywhere but here, where his family needed him the most. It had been too much. Waking up to a harshly warm morning, watching similar cars pass on the freeway. The bustle of life in the family, once wild and familiar, was now quiet and cold. And for a second, he would wonder why.
"She's gone." A voice would whisper in the back of his head and the memories would flash like horrid photographs. Limp, lifeless Livvy, her blood soaking the very floor they all stood on, life pouring out of her in its gallons...
It had only been 17 days since they got back. Tiberius barely left his room, stacks of nibbled lunches outside his shut door. It was as if Arthur's very spirit had possessed him. But Arthur never screamed so loud at the nightmares.
Ty had broken that day. Who ever Ty was with Livvy, the Ty they knew, had died with her.
His luminous grey eyes, once twinkling with curiosity and innocence, were like hard steel now. Distant, expressionless, almost ablaze with silver fire in his heightened emotions. Mark had seen what happened to members of the Wild Hunt when they drank from Gwyn's cup. Souls broken open for all to see, a rebirth of something more wild and dangerous. Yet he feared what he saw in Ty now. He had seen his soul break that day, and feared what danger had been unleashed...
"Are you waiting for them?"
He knew her voice. Gentle but assured. As if she knew the answers befopre you did.
Cristina.
She must have heard him come out here, considering the bare quiet of the nights now. He had wanted to go to Emma, lie down next to her like they used to do, even if it was treachery. But he knew she would be with someone more deserving of her comfort.
He felt for her, watching Julian, fretting over him in her silent parabati way. But her looks of absolute heartache and love was what broke him. He could practically feel her urge to destroy Julian's pain like a foul beast, anything to heal his heart. It seemed the mortal sword had pierced all if them that day.
"Is it selfish?" I ask, gazing at the sky. I can feel her presence, even in the cool night air, even as she's far from my side, I feel her there. His guilt strengthens.
"Selfish?" She asks inquisive, walking up to him.
"I know they need me here. I know I have to be here for them. But I feel so overpowered. I couldn't care for my family, I couldn't even take the burden off my baby brother. He had to split his heart, discard his childhood to be there for them, to be to them what he never had. And I couldn't help him." She stood beside him, he could feel her worry.
"Now one of our own is dead. As if that pain isn't enough, I have to watch Julian suffer. I have to watch him swallow it all down, to be strong for them. He shouldn't have to do that, he wouldn't have had to do that if I was here for him.I should be the one looking after him. Telling him not to worry, letting him cry on my shoulder. But Im here, wishing like a coward. Wishing Gwyn would bring me a steed and I could howl my sorrows into the clouds, drowned in the night air. Anything but this pain, anything but what this is."
It rushed out of him like a held breath. Cristina sat down beside him. Her bronze, soft fingers brushing his left eye. A tear that doesn't fall.
"You know, I'm usually better in these situations. I've always been the friend to comfort, a shoulder to cry on. But this... this has really shocked me, this whole event. All this chaos... Strength is so hard to find in the face is sorrow. It drains you everyday, just trying to breath, to survive let alone live."
She goes silent, twirling a loose strand of pink wool from her sweater. He could tell she came straight out of bed. Her eyes were slightly darkened from exhaustion and she gazed sombrely at the street below. Her gold pendant hung below her collarbone, glinting in the moonlight. Her long legs, bare and smooth, her pyjama shorts rolled up slightly...
He stopped himself. The guilt nearly suffocates him