Page 42 of Immortal Consequences (The Souls of Blackwood Academy #1)
Wren
There was no going back from this. No repairing what had broken.
Something, somehow, was killing her.
She couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. She could only focus on the pain. The never-ending, unfiltered pain that had taken over. She wanted to vomit. To cry. To scream. But all she could do was lie there, her body violently convulsing, unwillingly subjugating herself to wave after wave of torture.
And then she was weightless. Floating through time and space, moving through the darkness.
Somebody was speaking to her. A voice. A presence. The land around her disintegrated and she was back in the forest, back in the familiar glow of the Ether.
“Loughty.”
That voice.
That familiar, gravelly voice. She knew that voice. She’d always know that voice.
“August.”
He was running, cradling her body, arms holding her steady. Wren couldn’t comprehend where they were going or how far they were from Blackwood, only that her soul, slowly but surely, was fading.
“Talk to me.” He sounded so clear. So close. “Tell me what happened back there.”
Wren shuddered. “I needed you.”
She wasn’t sure if she imagined it, but she swore she heard him laugh.
“I’m going to want that in writing.”
“I’m very cold.”
“I know, darling. Just keep talking.”
But Wren couldn’t remember why she had been talking or where she was or what she was saying. She could only focus on the ash dancing against her tongue, the ice running through her veins, the soft murmur lulling her to sleep. And then a marvelous thought occurred to her.
“August. I think I’m dying.”
“You’re already dead.” His voice sounded too far away, warped, fragmented against an invisible veil. “You can’t die again.”
“But maybe I can,” Wren said. “Maybe I finally figured it out.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re going to befine.”
August sounded like he was out of breath, his chest rising and falling violently against Wren’s cheek. For a brief moment she pressed her ear against his chest, searching for a heartbeat, only to remember that neither of them had a pulse anymore. What a silly thing to do, Wren thought to herself.
“What’s silly?” August asked.
But Wren couldn’t hear him anymore. Not really. She was aware of his voice, the sound of it running down her skin like warm water, but she was beginning to lose the ability to piece his words together, their meaning coming undone before they could reach her ears.
“Just let me go,” Wren whispered.
“Not a chance.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” August’s voice shook. “Nothing.”
She glanced up, gathering all the energy she had left to peel her eyes open and stare at the outline of August’s face.
There was that little scar etched into the skin beneath his eye, a line of scar tissue adorning his right cheekbone.
She lifted a shaking hand, desperate to trace it, to feel it against the tip of her finger, but August seemed to be fading, drifting farther and farther from her grasp.
“Look at me.” August’s voice was hoarse. Desperate. “ Wren. Please. Open your eyes and look at me.”
She smiled. “It would take me dying for you to call me by my first name.”
“You’re not—” His breath hitched in his throat, silence reverberating in the space between them.
“It was my fault,” Wren rasped, eyelids fluttering closed. “I shouldn’t have let her drive. I should—I should have kept her safe.”
“Tell me about it when we get back to Blackwood.”
“I can’t.”
“For fuck’s sake—” He was using magic. She could taste it in the air. “Look at me, darling. Open your eyes. Please.”
“My hands are covered in blood.”
“There’s no blood. You’re not bleeding.”
Wren wanted to tell August that it wasn’t her blood she felt, but that the blood ran so deep through her that some nights she couldn’t bear to be inside her own skin.
That some nights, when nothing else brought her respite, she still prayed to a God she didn’t believe in to strike her down and put her out of her misery.
The last thing she heard was August’s voice as the world grewdark.
Please. Don’t leave me.