Page 69

Riley

I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. The words pounded in my skull, each repetition louder, harder, angrier. Screaming, shaking, demanded my attention until it wasn’t just a thought—it was a roar.

I failed. I failed. I failed.

My fists were clenched so tight, I could no longer feel my fingers. I tasted nothing but iron. My chest heaved, breath short but useless. No amount of air could make up for the loss of the person who’d kept me breathing for years.

I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed.

I failed.

I failed.

Amaia was dead.

Dead. I couldn’t stop hearing it, couldn’t stop seeing her—the way she’d fallen to her knees, the light in her eyes dimming as she let go, slipped into another mind space in order to let go. To make it easier to release her power when she did not want to say goodbye. Because there were no goodbyes. Not in this family. Not between us .

Together. That’s what I’d said. What I’d promised.

Always together.

I was supposed to have her six. At all times. That was my role. That was my job.

And I failed.

I failed her. I failed her when it mattered most.

My knees hit the asphalt with a crack, but I didn’t feel it. Pain didn’t register—nothing did. Not Alexiares losing control. Not Millie dragging a tearful Reina back, preventing her from further fueling Alexiares’s rage and fire. Not Tomoe as she gave way to Wrath, swinging it down, cutting through any and every adult she could find as she made her way to Reina, calling desperately for Millie to get her over here, to help before Tomás died. Not Abel shaking me. Begging me to get up. The snot dripping down his face made him appear every bit the sixteen-year-old I’d found hiding in what had become our home and not the twenty-year-old he was now.

There was no reality except the gaping hole in my heart, my chest, where she used to be.

My hands buried themselves in my locs, yanking hard, as though I could pull myself out of this God forsaken nightmare. But the images flashing through my mind would not stop. Her face, her voice, the feeling of her hand in mine when we’d said goodbye without uttering such words. I wish I could go back, to tell her everything I hadn’t. To tell her I loved her and I would take care of our home if she could not. That she could trust me to not fail her this one last and final time.

“I was supposed to protect her,” I whispered.

She’s gone.

Gone.

I doubled over, forehead pressing against the crumbling, battle-stricken ground, trying to find some anchor—anything to hold on to in this spiraling darkness.

Nothing.

Amaia was my anchor. My tether. One of the few nonnegotiable things I could not lose and still keep my sanity.

But she’s gone.

A broken sound escaped my throat, raw and uncontrollable. My shoulders shook and instead of fighting it the way I had for years, I let it happen. I let myself break. Because without Amaia, I didn’t know how to stay whole.