Chapter 10 Confession 2
? Rafe ?
SECONDS AFTER EXPLOSION
When I was flung through the air, it felt like I was being launched through every moment I ever had with Thorne, like the very act of Arden's bomb detonating meant being faced with how I'd failed to keep my promise to Kane.
I saw Thorne lazily smoking on the steps out by the courtyard at Viktor's, watching me beat up his brother and chuckling a little around his cigarette.
Then I saw that night, one of my favorite fucking nights, where he joined Kane and I out back in the garden.
We liked sneaking back there every now and then just to get a breath before we had to go back to pretending we were nothing but hollow men.
The ravens had grown by then, and only one of them had stayed at that tree.
It was like the damn bird knew how fucking lonely we got, how we needed it to hang out in that branch and just be there on our darkest days.
The three of us sat there that night, sprawled out in the grass, passing Thorne's cig and a bottle of brandy that Kane had snagged.
The brothers were on either side of me, messing with each other and laughing, shoving me around since I was trapped between them, and I'd...never felt so safe.
It was like having two halves of this really fucking great whole just orbit around me like padding.
Now one of those halves was dead, and as my back cracked down against debris, my eyes stinging with dust as wire sparked above, ceiling lights knocked into perpetual sways like the pendulums of a cruel clock counting the seconds that dared to exist, I knew I would never forgive myself.
I was the one who was supposed to have his back.
I was the one who somehow missed that shot. Thorne was dead, and it was my fault.
But then my guilt was overshadowed by the single, torturous realization that in every direction I saw fire, but I didn't see my girl.
My eyes stung as I lifted from the rubble, the door to Room 82 hanging off its hinges.
I ducked, covering my head as pieces of ceiling battered down before I was forced to hook my elbow over my nose and mouth, weaving between plumes of smoke and dust into Room 82.
The toe of my boot hit something, and I took a breath before I looked down.
The smallest amount of relief went through me at the sight of Halden’s burning corpse.
Then I squinted, searching and searching before I finally saw her.
Arden. She was curled up in the corner, her face covered in soot and her hands bloodied and limp.
Her hair was singing, fire burning into her arms and legs, melting her clothes into her skin, and yet she wasn’t moving.
She was just…staring. At nothing. I coughed, the act flaring the injury in my throat, and scooped her into my arms. Her limbs were limp as I ran us out.
Rubble collapsed nearby, closing off too many exit routes.
The bomb’s blast had thoroughly effected the foundational structure of the building.
I gently sat her down and ripped off my shirt in a fluid motion, batting out the fire from her skin and hair.
I cupped her face, my heart cracking as I stared into her eyes and it didn’t seem like she was looking back.
She was vacant, and it terrified me more than finding her dead would have.
I shook her shoulders gently. My eyes burned when she didn’t respond, but the fire was spreading fast. I gathered her back into my arms, cradling her to my chest, sprinting us through the maze of fire and falling debris.
I caught flashes of it as I moved, corners where the makings of Creed still echoed, hallways we’d been dragged bleeding through, hope clutched in the sight of each other’s trails because it meant we were still holding on.
All of it burned, every last place that had beaten us into Halden's perfect soldiers was finally collapsing in on itself.
I looked down at her face as I ran, her lashes dark with soot, her mouth slack, her body too still against mine, and I begged her silently to look, to stay, but her eyes fluttered shut and her body sagged further, the fight bleeding out of her inch by terrifying inch.
Please, baby, please, open those pretty eyes, the ones with my favorite fucking colors.
Look at what you did, how strong you are, but she was gone, trapped deep inside herself.
I tightened my grip, pressing her closer to my chest when I caught sight of familiar bodies ahead and slowed, pain radiating through my chest.
Everyone looked accounted for. Both Delgado brothers were injured, leaning into Heath and Monty. Grace and Florence were hugging each other. But I didn’t understand why they were just standing there until I shouldered through and saw Thorne’s body.
Never in my life had I ever seen Kane Creed still.
Rage was his go-to. Always. He was never not moving, hitting, doing something, as if motion itself was the only thing standing between him and collapse.
But that day, he was just knelt beside Thorne, his little brother’s head tucked in his lap, his face utterly blank as he stared down into Thorne’s lifeless eyes, like the world had finally taken something that Kane had broken himself to make sure was untouchable.
I had seen Kane furious, feral, laughing in the middle of bloodshed, but I had never seen him quiet, like there was nothing left inside him worth protecting.
He sensed I was there, his gaze slowly drifting up to meet mine, heavy and unseeing at first, then sharpening with recognition and something darker, something that would never leave either of us.
He tugged Thorne into his arms and stood almost robotically, careful with him in a way Kane had never been careful with anything in his life, except maybe Arden.
We shared a dark look, our rage matched as we held onto Creed with everything we had left. Then we walked our other halves out of that compound for once and for all.
We boarded the jet with their limp bodies.
The Ravens kept to the front, the girls keeping Mickey and Matthias company.
Kane and I stuck to the back, Thorne carefully laid out across the row beside us.
I never let Arden go. Not once. I rocked her gently, checking her pulse repeatedly.
It remained steady and unyielding, but so did her strange, empty state.
I’d never wanted more than to talk in that moment.
I thought maybe if I could just whisper in her ear that I had her, that she was safe, then her arms would curl around me and she’d let herself rest against my chest. But I couldn’t do that, so I just kept holding her, stroking her arm, hoping that her gaze would stop looking so much like Thorne’s.
Arden looked dead but her heart was still beating; then again, Creed were always meant to be corpses.
I just never thought I’d see the day when she finally gave in.
My gaze flicked over to Thorne, and I swallowed.
I knew it was him. He was the reason she was like this.
Nothing else would make her retreat except for another Creed being hurt.
I think it’d killed her the same as a bullet through the head.
As if confirming my thoughts, a single tear slid down her cheek.
I slid my thumb over her cheek, wiping it away and kissing her forehead gently.
It’s okay, I wanted to tell her so badly, Thorne finally made it.
He’s free. Probably riding a super bike through the pyres of hell waiting on his family to join him.
And you can bet that he’s smiling, Arden, driving past where they keep Halden down there and praising your name like the goddess you are to him, what you’ve always been, to all of us.
I tucked a curl behind her ear. Don’t you worry, baby.
He loves fire. How could he not having known you?
A pained sound left me then. It fucking hurt, but I tried to talk to her.
In the seat beside us, Kane shifted closer to me.
Carefully, he reached over me and took one of Arden’s hands, grasping it tight, his eyes red-rimmed.
His other was stretched across the aisle, wrapped firmly around his brother’s knuckles.
It was like he was trying to bridge an impossible gap, and I let my shoulder lean into his.
“She’s not responsive to any stimuli,” the doctor said.
He was in his late forties and had a permanently pinched expression as he surveyed Arden.
I stood by her side, her body balled in a fetal position in her bed at the townhouse.
The doctor, Dr. Sable, was crouched beside the bed, flashing a flashlight in her eyes and jotting down notes. “How long has she been like this?”
“A few days,” Heath said. The woman had helped me tend to Arden since we got back, her smile always trembling.
She was kind enough, but I would’ve rather had Kane there.
But my Creed brother was healing in his own way.
He’d disappeared shortly after the jet touched down, and if I had to guess, no one would see Kane for some time.
He didn’t have a courtyard to explode in this time—only the real world.
I was worried for him, but I also knew the person he really needed was the one currently unresponsive. He needed his light. We all did.
“States like these are hard to pinpoint,” Dr. Sable admitted. He straightened with a grim expression. “Usually I would say helping her face her trauma could potentially snap her out of it, but having worked for the Ravens as long as I have, I know that’s easier said than done.”
If only I could bring Thorne back from the dead.