Page 18

RAY

M y blood. My brother.

He lies too still atop a towering pyre, surrounded by dried branches and solemn offerings, waiting for the fire to claim what remains and scatter his ashes across the soil he loved so fiercely.

I whisper he’s gone, again and again, a hundred times, a thousand more—and still, it won’t sink in. Sammy Crawford—our Sammy. The pride of Dawson. The fiercest warrior of us all.

He’s gone.

He fought his last battle.

He lost.

We lost.

Who—or what—he fought doesn’t matter anymore. Only the outcome remains. Final. Irrevocable. End.

Such a tiny word. Just three letters, but those letters carry the weight of an entire life ripped away. A future erased. Some endings are merciful—curtains over pain, closings on suffering. They cradle the broken and offer peace.

But not this.

This is Sammy .

And Sammy wasn’t in pain. He wasn’t lost or broken. He was in love. Alive in every sense—planning a future with Erica, glowing in a way I hadn’t seen since we were kids chasing fireflies under the Dawson moon.

He called her his Siren , said she sang a song no man could resist. He was, at long last, building something for himself. A life filled with peace, with love, with her. Now, that dream lies broken and destroyed.

I stand at the edge of the platform where we built his pyre, the heat of grief pressing from behind.

Our packmates and neighbors ripple around me like shadows in the twilight.

Raul steps forward, dressed in white, a color that feels too clean for grief.

His hands fumble with the microphone stand, fingers twitching like he’s unsure what to do with them.

“What do you say…?” Raul’s voice is low, stripped of its usual weight. “What the hell can you say at times like these?”

He pauses, bowing his head and swallowing hard, trying to cling to his last bits of composure.

“I’m sorry, Sammy,” his voice cracks, but he pushes on. “Sorry I wasn’t there. Sorry I wasn’t fast enough. You were the one with the words—not me. You could charm anyone, talk your way through every mess. I was fists and teeth while you had the heart. The voice. And all our hope.”

He pauses, scratching his jaw, then scans the gathering like maybe someone else might pick up the rest, take this burden from him, but no one does.

“I’d trade places with you,” he whispers, inaudible if not for the microphone. “God knows I’d take your place in a second.”

He pauses and the silence that follows is so heavy I can’t take a breath. The air won’t come. I’m choking, my vision blurring. Raul lowers his head, choking too.

“Farewell, Sammy,” Raul says.

The world is still. Even the breeze holds in deference to this moment. Not a cricket chirps or a bird calls. This is a moment for the entire universe to acknowledge the loss of my brother. Then the hissing fizz of the match flaring.

Nora’s hand trembles as she strikes it. She holds the tiny flame over the pyre, sobbing, the stick clenched between thumb and forefinger. Turning her head to the side she lets it drop. She gasps and stumbles back as the tinder catches with a whoosh.

Nora steps back, coming to a stop between Raul and me.

She rests her head on my shoulder and I wrap my free arm around her waist. Sam’s body is wrapped and laid with care.

It looks like he’s sleeping and might, at any moment, wake up.

Might crack a joke, ask who in the hell had the bright idea to set him on fire.

He doesn’t. And it hurts. So fucking much.

The flames lick up the logs, climbing greedily towards him. The flames lick up the logs, crackling and spitting sparks into the dusk as they ascend the wooden tower. Then it’s licking at the edges of the cloth. Curling around his too still form. Waves of heat slam against me, but I don’t move.

My eyes sting, but I don’t blink. I can’t. My mind slips back—to the night I found him. His still body in the dirt. The unnatural quiet. The blood. The way the stars overhead seemed to dim in deference.

“I love you…” Erica’s voice rises over the flame’s roar.

She steps forward, barely beyond the boundary of the fire.

She stares, eyes locked on the place where his chest used to rise and fall.

Her words tremble. “You’ll always be my Sammy,” she chokes.

“You’re not supposed to leave me, you hear? Never. It’s not fair!”

She lurches forward, but Monica and Stacy rush in, stopping her from throwing herself into the fire.

Her sobs tear through the night as she collapses into her friends’ arms. My heart shatters.

As bad as my own pain is, I can’t imagine hers.

They pull her away but her wails echo through the clearing like the sound of a soul being torn in two.

I watch the three of them vanish into the crowd, swallowed by a forest of mourners. My throat clamps shut. I knew she loved him—I saw it in her eyes, in how she softened and shone around him.

But now?

Now I know .

She would’ve walked into that fire if they’d let her. Just to hold him one last time. To whisper his name against his skin, feel his heartbeat against hers for one more second. She thought they had forever. And they should have.

But we don’t get to choose how our stories end.

Even when we’ve earned something better.