Page 109 of Pet: Torment

He’s really here. But my body won’t let me believe it, not after everything I’ve gone through. I try to move away, trembling.

“Don’t…please,” I whisper.

I don’t know what I’m begging for, but Remus ignores my words, his arms wrapping around my neck and waist as he pulls me into him. Warmth radiates from his every pore, covering my body. The pain, the exhaustion, all of it decreases to a dull ache as he heals me, his body trembling against my own.

“You’re alive,” he says.

I must be dead. I died. I died, and for some reason, Remus is the one to greet me in the afterlife. But his grip tightens, and his sobs grow more intense, making me think this isn’t a dream. This is real.

“I…” I trail off, not knowing what to say. All this time I wanted him back, and here he is on the cusp of a world’s destruction. He pulls away from me, and I’ve never seen anything as painfully beautiful as tears in his eyes accompanied by a smile.

He’s smiling.

I’m in shock, I realize as I reach for his face, and he lets me. I press my palm against his cheek, and his skin is warm beneath my touch. He doesn’t pull away, and there is no force field blocking me from his skin. It’s him. He’s real, and he’s here.

I slowly shift my attention around us. Wherever this is can’t have been onXyrannis. We’re surrounded by a blue sky that gives nothing else other than the intense color. And we’re atop a singular mountain, it looks like. My brain can’t seem to comprehend anything as it tries to readjust itself from being on the brink of death.

It slowly becomes real. My tears return, my body jumping into Remus’s as I relay everything to him. I cry and sob, begging him to stop what he’s doing, telling him that Ezra and Sky are still alive and that Noah sacrificed his life to save us. I cry for him, begging him to forgive me for not doing more. And while I doso, I spend every second inhaling his scent, squeezing the fabric of his clothes so tight that they bunch under my nails, letting me know that he is truly here.

He’s come back to me.

He holds me through all of it, his voice the only thing that can lull me out of my hysterics. It takes me a second to realize my body grows heavier by the second, my eyes becoming too drowsy to keep open. He’s putting me to sleep.

“Don’t worry. I’m here. I’ll be here when you wake up,” Remus murmurs.

It’s the last thing I hear before darkness encompasses me with Remus’s voice to carry me.

Remus

Death is so finite. It is one of the few things to elicit clarity in those who experience it through those close to them. The darkness I felt has been quelled by Iris’s life. I was hasty with my anger and once again almost contributed to her death. Lucky for both of us, with my newfound basic understanding ofCelestivinepower, I sensed the hairpin I gave her.

I was able to sense it from entire continents away, and I was able to confirm that it was attached to something that was alive.

Iris doesn’t stir as I gently push her hair away from her face. She must be exhausted. The wounds littering her body were gruesome by the time I found her. If the planet’s destruction didn’t kill her, the injury my mother gave her would have within a few hours. They closed it by burning the wound shut, trapping the decomposing energy my mother used inside her body. Herdeath would have been slow and painful. I’m sure she was already experiencing its effects before I found her.

I release a trembling breath as I keep my hand against her cheek. Her body is warm, and the sound of her breathing is a sound I will cherish forever. I lean over her, placing a soft kiss on her cheek, and she still doesn’t stir.

“I’m not giving up on you, Remus.”

I smile as the memory comes to me. On Earth, I loathed her incessant desire to fight for hopeless causes. But having her in my corner, fighting for me even when it was useless, makes the love I have for her expand all the more. It makes anyone who would dare come between us an enemy.

“I’m not giving up on you either, Iris. Never again.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Iris

My ascent into consciousness is slow. My body, though for once without pain, feels exhausted. It feels like I ran a marathon, as the struggle to open my eyes lulls me in and out of sleep. But I finally open them, and I am greeted with a familiar ceiling. The rows of columns lead to the opening of the ceiling-to-floorwindows, revealing the familiar snowy landscape beyond the glass.

I’m in Remus’s home—in Remus’s bed.

Tears of relief spring into my eyes. He didn’t destroy the planet. It takes a moment for me to recall everything that happened before he put me to sleep. But I know for sure I saw him. We spoke briefly, and he healed me.

I close my eyes, bunching the sheets beneath my fingers as I pull it to my nose, enjoying the smell I’ve come to associate with Remus. Once I’ve calmed, I slowly sit up, flinching at the tension I feel in my stomach. I look down, removing the blanket to reveal a light pink scar on the right of my abdomen. It’s the area his mother stabbed me. I slowly run my fingers over it, the skin tingling slightly to my touch.

“It must have been hard for you.” Remus’s voice carries over the room, and I look up to see him standing in the doorway he created.

He slowly enters the room, moving with inhuman strides. He looks different. Though he has all the same feature—minus his hair—he moves differently. I didn’t think he could look any less human, but as he approaches, the deep glitter of his eyes is unnerving. I’m both happy and nervous to see him. But something has changed since his memory returned.