She stood amidst the dead girls. They were all staring at her. Wide eyes; the fear still left in them. The remainders of the moment they had died; a hint of pain, a hint of understanding, edged into their retinas forever.
There was also blame. They were blaming her. Not Nuce or Diamond, not the killers she could not see, or the Mafia they could never truly defeat. Just her.
Valkyrie could understand the notion. She too blamed herself. For this, for everything.
She had looked the moment in the eye, over and over, until she hadn't. She had cowered in fear of death and let everyone else pay the price. And now, she could not stop cowering.
Valkyrie supposed, she was paying the price now. After all, she had never escaped dying that day. She had died and she had never come back, was still there, stuck in the emptyness of it, the nonchalantness of it, the heavyness of it. She was not just an empty shell, she was a shell in pieces. Gone, irrelevant, useless.
She had brought this onto herself, of course. She had left. Had left twice, in a way. She had made herself irrelevant in the hopes of becoming something else. Something new. Anything new. Anything better than this.
And she had failed. Of course, she had failed. She had never succeeded protecting anyone from anything. She had saved the world, of course. Several times. And yet, it seemed, she might had saved the world itself; had seen the big picture. But the small picture, the one of her hugging her friends and family, the one of her and Skulduggery, making the impossible possible. Those images were not real. They had been washed out by the loss and torn apart by the guilt. Until all that was left were... snippets.
Valkyrie was one of those snippets, floating around in the air, looking for a good spot to land. But there was no land, just the soaring sea beneath her feet, and so she never did.
She had not slept that night or the night after. But Valkyrie supposed, she must have slept at some point, if she was dreaming right now.
"Valkyrie?"
She looked up from the dead girls, tore her eyes from their stiff and disappointed gazes.
"Valkyrie." Skulduggery's voice said.
She paused. Valkyrie took the phone off her ear and stared at it. When had she picked up her phone? She could not even remember getting up. She could not remember getting up, and getting showered, and dressed, and...
No, wait, she did remember all these things, now that she thought about it. Valkyrie looked around. She was in her kitchen.
Skulduggery was still on the phone. "Valkyrie."
"Um, yeah, I'm here." She quickly replied. "Sorry, got a bit distracted there."
"Everything alright?" He prodded, sounding worried.
"I'm fine." She lied. "It's too early."
"Too early to arrest slavers?" Skulduggery suggested doubtfully.
"Too early to function. Now, come pick me up."
"I'm already outside."
Valkyrie frowned and looked down at herself. She was, indeed, dressed and ready to leave. "For how long have you been out there? You do know I have a doorbell, right?"
"I'm aware," Skulduggery said as a hint of doubt tainted his aloofness. "I'm also aware that you own a phone. Which is why I called you."
"Right." Valkyrie nodded. "I'll be out in two."
She hung up. Her phone screen showed 8:08 AM. She was late.
A jolt went through her body before Valkyrie even realized that she was realizing something. She let her instincts take over, and they made her bolt out of the kitchen, and grab her jacket on the way out of the house.