Chapter 3
Chapter Three
I stumbled from their room—from the place that would forever remain tainted.
The first step I took outside was like stepping into a life already broken–a life split at the seams, spilling grief across a world that didn’t even notice.
The familiar scent of mud choked my lungs, thick and raw. The storm raged around me, the damp air swirling in vicious gusts that shook the trees down to their roots.
Blasts of icy wind stung my face, cutting tears free from my eyes that had nothing to do with the cold.
And for the first time—I realized the world could keep spinning even when everything you loved had already shattered to dust.
Fuck it.
Fuck all of it.
Rain berated my skin, the droplets feeling more like stones as they pelted my body. I didn’t care; I began to run, as if putting distance between me and my father’s corpse could do anything.
As though a few steps could undo the sight of his body–could undo any of it.
Lightning lit the sky, electricity humming through the air, prickling my skin with goosebumps. I pumped my legs, pushing them harder and faster until the only thing I felt was the burn in my thighs.
It was so better than the agony coiled around my heart, squeezing until it felt like it would shatter under the pressure.
“Em.”
I ignored the low timbre of my best friend's voice, pushing myself harder, sprinting faster.
But I couldn't outrun the sound of his footsteps thundering after me, just a heartbeat behind.
I couldn't face Sebastian.
I couldn't face anyone.
Not when the pain raging through me was a living, breathing entity—wild, ravenous, untamed—and ready to claim what little was left of me.
I pushed myself past breaking point, past reason, past anything that resembled survival.
My ragged breathing drowned out everything—the rain, the trees, the desperate way Sebastian called my name—muting the storm, muting the world, muting everything except the scream clawing to get out of my chest.
I didn’t stop.
Not until my legs finally betrayed me.
My knees hit the mud with a brutal, jarring thud.
The sound cracked through the storm, sharp and hollow—like something inside me had finally snapped.
Mud sucked at my skin, cold and clinging. The scent of upturned earth clogged my lungs—thick and wrong and heavy with decay. It buried itself inside me, heavy and soul-consuming, and even then it still couldn't overpower the grief choking me.
"Emmie." His voice—raw and wrecked—cut through the howling wind.
"Don't," I rasped, my voice splintering like shattered glass.
"Please. Don't."
He hesitated—just for a second—and the whole world held its breath with him.
The rain slowed.
The wind stilled.
The very earth seemed to pause—waiting for the moment to break me open.
"They're ready to burn your father."
The words didn’t just hit me.
They shattered inside me.
My head snapped toward Sebastian—and the storm in his molten amber eyes crashed into mine.
He didn’t flinch from my devastation.
He took it.
Absorbed it.
Carried it like it was his own. He always had.
His beautifully sharp features didn't soften the blow. Nothing could. They seared through me, sparking wildfire until all that remained was the raging, broken skeleton of loss.
"They can't," I gasped, barely managing the words. "I—I'm not ready."
The world shuddered.
The storm raged louder.
Or maybe it was my heartbeat.
Maybe it was the last of my strength crumbling.
"You'll never be ready," Sebastian said softly, his voice fraying at the edges. Usually so warm. So teasing.
Now hollow.
A mirror of the emptiness devouring me.
The faint light in his eyes—that impossible golden flicker—dimmed until there was nothing left but sorrow.
I shook my head, helpless against the weight of it.
"I—I don't know if I can make it back," I whispered.
I wasn't sure if I meant my body. My heart. Or my soul.
The adrenaline was gone, stripped from my veins. All that remained was a broken body, a ruined heart, a girl who didn’t know how to survive this.
Sebastian knelt in front of me.
His hands—rough and calloused and shaking—cupped my face, forcing me to meet his eyes.
"You don’t have to do this alone," he said, fierce and sure, even when his voice cracked on the words.
And before I could fall apart all over again, he gathered me into his arms—held me like he had been born knowing how to catch me.
"It's okay," Sebastian murmured into my hair. "I've got you."
Before I could protest, before I could break more, he swept me up like I weighed nothing at all.
The rain poured down, soaking us both—until it felt like we were carved from the same storm, bound together by it.
I buried my face against him—against the steady, stubborn beat of his heart—and let him carry the weight I couldn't. I savored the warmth of his embrace. Cherished the heartbeat that became the only thing keeping mine from stopping.
"I've got you," he whispered again, the words threading into my soul, stitching me together even as I unraveled.
Not a promise.
A vow.
I didn’t protest. I couldn’t.
I just clung to him, trembling, hollowed, while the storm howled around us.
"Are you ready?" His voice shattered on the words—and my heart stuttered, refusing to answer.
No.
But I nodded anyway, because I couldn't stay collapsed in the mud forever.
Because staying wouldn't bring my father back.
Sebastian lowered me to the ground so gently it broke me all over again. I barely felt the waterlogged grass under my bare feet. I hardly felt anything at all.
I didn't even register my family standing around the pyre—blurry shadows in a world already losing its color.
I only had eyes for the altar.
The pyre.
The place where they would set fire to my father’s body—where they would send him into the afterlife without me.
My heart clawed against my ribs, desperate to escape the reality. It felt like something primal—wild and feral—tearing itself free from my chest.
But Sebastian’s hand found mine.
His fingers threaded through mine, tethering me when I was nothing but smoke.
Somehow—against all odds—I stayed standing.
If Sebastian hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have. He was the only thing keeping me from dissolving completely. The last light I could hold onto in a darkness that wanted to devour me whole.
Sebastian’s thumb brushed over my knuckles, so light it almost wasn't there, and he whispered so softly the fire almost stole it away?—
"I'm still here." Air stilled around us. “I will always be here.”