Page 44 of His Retribution

"I see things that don't make sense. A lifetime of fleeting moments that I feel are mine but can't possibly be! I'm losing what little hold I have on my sanity, Havok, and it's going to kill me!Heis going to kill me!" I sob, sob so hard my whole body shakes. "I'm not supposed to have friends, form attachments! It keeps everything simple, makes it easy for me to leave, and I will leave. You know why, Havok? Do you want to know why I have to leave?"

"Tell me."

I laugh through my tears, laugh at how fucked up all of this is. "I will leave for the same reason I don't allow myself to have friends, can't allow myself to care for anyone else! I'll leave because if I don't, the man with the soulless eyes will find me and when he does he will kill me! I'm running from a goddamn nightmare that is as fantastical as these warped memories but even more real than I can wrap my head around! So I'll do what I always do and I'll run as far away as possible and pray to the God I stopped believing in years ago that the man with the soulless eyes won't find me!"

"Gypsy. My angel, I can—"

Havok reaches for me but I push him away. "Don't. Don't make empty promises to the crazy girl. Your intentions may be good but there is nothing you or anyone else can do to protect me from this. I am doomed, Havok. Doomed to die the way I've seen in my nightmares and no one can convince me otherwise. But you know what the worst part of all that is?"

He holds my gaze, doesn't waver.

"The worst part is despite knowing how this is going to end, I broke my only rule and now I know when I finally live the nightmare that plays on repeat in my mind, it will be with the knowledge of everything I could never have and I will die with a broken heart.” I start backing away, and hold my hands up so he doesn't follow. "I broke my rule and let you in. You became my friend and made me want something more than a life doomed to nothing but a bloody end. You made me want something I can never have and it breaks my fucking heart to think of what could have been."

"Gypsy, please."

I shake my head. "I don't want to see you again, Havok. I don't want to see any of you. I can't take any more happiness when I know it'll be even more fleeting than the visions in my mind.” I can barely get the words out through my tears. ”It's inevitable and it'll be better for everyone if you all just stay away. It isn't worth it to keep trying when the outcome will be the same. Just stay away from me; I'll be gone in two weeks anyway."

Then I take off.

Run through the woods as fast as I can, run until my body threatens to collapse, and the second I push into my house, I do.

I drop to the floor and cry for everything I've lost, everything I'm going to lose.

I cry for a life I'm not sure was mine but feels so real that I can't help but mourn it.

I cry until there is nothing left, until I'm numb and so exhausted that when I pass out I'm too tired to even dream.

There is nothing but black.

Last Stand

My light has not left her home in three days.

She stopped working on her truck at night, and hasn't gone back to the bar since she threatened Joyce.

My angel hasn't even left to purchase groceries or any other potential needs.

Posey tried to speak with her the morning after the incident at the bar, came out here to explain that everything was fine, that she still had a job.

My light never even came to the door.

Andrej and Milos have taken turns keeping watch over her during the day and what little I know of her activities has been observed by them and reported back to me.

At night I come to my spot at the tree and keep guard myself but it takes everything in me not to break down the door and hold her, console her while she cries until there are no tears left.

My light does not sleep.

I fear she is not eating.

When Samson goes out he comes right up to me and practically begs me to go to her.

Henrich is looking for thisman with the soulless eyesin our folklore, looking for mention of visions or memories bleeding through to one's conscious mind among the vampire legends but I don't need his findings to prove my theory.

The man my mate lives in fear of is my grandfather, and she has in fact dreamt of her death a thousand times over, seen it so much that she knows it will happen again.

I suspect the fleeting moments she is seeing are from our life together.

The way she reacted to Joyce was proof of that.