Page 78 of Dance of the Phoenix

Crouching before her, I tasted my own tears as I pulled her shaking body into my arms. She thrashed against me, screaming and crying, seemingly unable to stop.

“Jada,” I said, my voice breaking, and she stilled. “I’m ... I’m here.”

She looked up, her eyes so pale, shattered, and broken, they made my own tears multiply, clogging my throat. “Do it,” she begged, clinging onto my shirt. “Do it.”

I knew what she wanted me to do. What I’d promised her I would do if the worst came to pass, which it just did.

When I saw light in her eyes dim, she released my shirt, as if she couldn’t hold on anymore, her screaming coming to a stop. I saw what Jada had talked about before. And why she asked me to kill her.

Jada’s face grew devoid of emotions, her body becoming limp like a rag doll, the vitality of what made JadaJadadisappearing right before my eyes.

Moments later, Jada was gone and in her place was a breathing body with no soul.

As if when CJ was killed, so was her very own self.

He was her literal soulmate. Without him, Jada practically ceased to exist.

A hand, belonging to Ragnor, landed on my shoulder. “It’s over,” he said, looking at Jada with both devastation and unbearable pity. “Let us return to the dorms.”

I picked Jada up. She didn’t even resist. It was as if in the span of seconds, she’d become devoid of any agency.

My chest squeezed, aching, as the events of the last few hours passed through my head, while walking back to the dorms along with the remaining Rayne League members.

The realization of everything that had happened threatened to seize control over my mind. Threatened to make me crumble and fall right there and then.

But I couldn’t fall apart yet. I had a deadly request to fulfill.

A sob escaped my lips when we entered the lounge and I laid Jada on the sofa. “Bring me a knife, please,” I said to Ragnor, voice hoarse.

He didn’t ask me why. He simply went to the kitchenette, grabbed a knife, and brought it over to me.

Shaking, I sat next to Jada, who stared, unblinkingly, at practically nothing. She didn’t even move. She was comatose with her eyes open.

Ragnor, Isora, and others surrounded Jada and me, as if they were all aware of what was coming. They might not have known the details, but they’d all seen what had just happened to Jada when CJ died.

It was as if everyone just instinctivelyknew.

So it was silent from the moment I forced myself to dig the knife into Jada’s chest until the second I carved out her heart.

Jada, in her vegetative state, didn’t seem in pain as she passed.

The knife fell from my hand, along with the heart, to the floor. “I’m sorry,” I whispered in the awful silence, endless tears escaping me. “I’m sorry ...”

Isora sat next to me and pulled me into her. “Don’t be,” she said, her own voice breaking as she began to cry too. “It’s not your fault. None of it is.”

Gently, Neisha, whose own face was smeared with tears, picked Jada’s body up. “I’m going to store her in another room until we depart,” she said quietly. “She deserves to be buried back home.”

Home.The Rayne League.

Ragnor’s League.

My League.

The very League that had just lost some of its finest members.

Ragnor took the seat to my right and pulled me to him softly. “Rest, Isora,” he said quietly. “I got her.”

Isora obliged and left for the dorms along with everyone else, giving us space.