Page 34 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came—or maybe my jaw just fell slack, and I was staring helplessly at the only relief my mind could conjure.

She stood and extended a hand. “Now, get up.”

“I…can’t,” I replied for some Goddess-forsaken reason.

“You won’t . There’s a difference.”

My hallucination wouldn’t say that, would it? Blood rushed to my cheeks. “Thana?—”

“Clearly, being gentle isn’t enough. Being here for you isn’t enough. Loving you isn’t enough, because you’ll never choose to save yourself. You’d rather drown while I watch from the boat, tossing you rope after rope.”

“Then leave.” The words tasted like poison. I hated them. I hated the alcohol. I hated myself. “Just…leave. Stop watching. Stop trying to save me and leave. ”

Her throat bobbed, but she didn’t move.

“Go!” I shouted.

“Don’t you think I would if I could?” she snapped, and something in me broke.

My shoulders slouched, my breath leaving with a whoosh, and I averted my gaze before she could see the emotion burning my eyes.

I would leave me too, if I could.

“I know you’re hurting.” She dropped to her knees and forced me to look at her. “But I’m hurting, too. Watching you…slowly die is killing me, too.”

I can’t do this. My chest locked in a vise, my breaths too shallow, my hands trembling. Pressure swelled beneath my too-tight skin, in my throat, behind my eyes. She was about to rip me apart at the seams, and I didn’t know what would pour out. All I knew was that I didn’t want her to see it.

“You have to leave,” I begged. “You have to leave. Escape, before you’re trapped in this hell with me.”

Her gaze flitted between mine. “Do you want me to leave?”

Cracks shot through my crumbling walls, and I released a broken, “No.”

She pulled me into her lap and wrapped her arms around my shoulders as I did, indeed, rip apart at the seams. I fell into pieces, a pathetic mess of sobs and hatred, but she held me together.

She held me even when the tears stopped, even when I’d fallen into silence, and numbness settled over me. She held me like she needed to.

Her hand smoothed my hair. “It wasn’t your fault.”

I tried to pull away, but she refused to give me an inch.

“You didn’t do it. Any of it. I need you to hear me, shadow. You’re not guilty of what he made you do.”

Shadow. I could’ve laughed if I weren’t on the verge of crying again. She hadn’t called me that in so long. “ With your magic, you’re just a shadow on the wall.”

Five minutes ago, I would have drowned this conversation with more alcohol, but this wasn’t five minutes ago, and I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I just wanted to breathe without the crushing weight on my chest.

“I still did it,” I whispered, though my words were weak and felt awfully close to surrender.

“Even if it wasn’t me, it was my body, my words, my hands.

I led them out there that night and cost them everything.

” She ran her fingers through my hair, sending a shiver down my spine.

“I watched Alden die , and Ara, she lost one of the two family members she had left, and the torture… months of torture, and Rogue…” I screwed my eyes shut.

“It doesn’t matter that I didn’t want to.

I still did it, and nothing can change that. ”

Her chest rose and fell beneath my head, her heart hammering. “Do you blame me for Ara almost dying? I wasn’t even?—”

“No,” I cut in. “No, he had your family, and she didn’t die.”

“Thank the Goddess, she didn’t, but she ingested the poison, Delphia. Would you have blamed me if it had killed her? Would you have hated me?”

I stared out the window at the black ocean. Ara was family, just as Rogue was, but Thana’s family mattered, too.

Would Thana be to blame? Most likely.

But would I have hated her?

“I could never hate you, aster,” I replied quietly, truthfully.

Aster, the purple flower that consumed hillsides in the summer months near Rainsmyre, and a word in the old language that translated to star.

I had no idea just how accurate that name would become when I called her that all those years ago, yet here she was, the only star still shining in my very dark sky.

“Then, I need you to hate yourself a little less,” she pleaded. “If only for my sake. I can’t live like this, but I can’t live without you, and I won’t leave you like this.”

I buried my palms into my eyes and begged, “Please. Stop watching. Stop trying to save me. Just go .”

“No, I won’t. I never will. You didn’t make that choice, and it is not your fault someone else did. Yes, Alden, Ara, and Rogue had horrible things done to them, but so did you .”

She pulled my hands from my face, and tears swam in her eyes. Those were my fault, too.

“I’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel like I deserve to be alive,” I whispered. “He should’ve just killed me. It would’ve been less painful.”

Thana’s chest shook, and she hugged me until I couldn’t breathe. “Less painful maybe, but you’re here with me, breathing, surviving…mostly.”

Was I? I chuckled, surprising even myself. I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed at anything. When was the last time I even smiled?

“You deserve to be here. You deserve to forgive yourself. You deserve love and—I love you, Delphia. I am in love with you.”

“I don’t deserve you.” My thoughts came to a screeching halt. Wait. In love?

“I decide who deserves me, and I choose you. I want you . I love you .” I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off. “You better not say a single negative word in response to that.”

Taking a deep breath, I lay on the floor, leaving my head in her lap as I gazed up at her. Moonlight agreed with Thana, praising her with a gentle highlight on her long violet hair. She smiled down at me, and sparks ricocheted in my stomach.

“I’m so, so in love with you, it hurts, Thana, but I can’t?—”

“Nope.” She slid out from under me. “No buts.”

I reached for her, panicked, only for her to lie down beside me and extend an arm. I scooted closer to rest my head on her shoulder, and she ran her fingers through my hair again.

“I’m not going anywhere, shadow.”

After a childhood on the streets of Rainsmyre, safety was a feeling I never took for granted. It should be a right for every living person, but it wasn’t. Doran, Rogue, and I understood that more than most. It was a privilege, one I appreciated above all else.

Thana felt safer than anyone I’d ever met, and with her, my entire being calmed. If someone like her could love me, then maybe I could learn to love myself, too—or at least forgive myself. Maybe.

My eyes grew heavy, each blink slower than the last. The room spun, blurring into a hazy oblivion, but Thana…

Thana was my anchor. She tethered me wherever her skin touched mine, my head on her shoulder the only thread keeping me from sliding backward into my own hatred.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Her hand brushed down my hair, my spine, along my arm. “Are you going to remember this in the morning?”

“Forget the three words I’ve been waiting years for?” My mouth was sluggish, each word hard-won, but I managed to press a kiss just below her collarbone. Her breath hitched, and my lips twitched with a smile. “Never.”