“No. You?” He didn’t respond so Vixin assumed he’d shaken his head. “Where are the others hiding? I might be able to tunnel to them.”
Silence.
“Zak?” She touched his arm only to find him shaking. “What’s wrong?” Vixin felt his face and the tears streaming down it. “Zak?”
“They’re gone.”
“Whose gone?”
He gritted his teeth and a sob tore through his body. “Everyone. They’re all gone.”
What? No, that wasn’t possible.
“Zak, where’s Sam?”
Zak let out a strangled cry at his friend’s name and something in her gut wrenched. It crushed her, pressing a weight so hard over her chest she wasn’t sure she’d ever breath again. But she did, and the shards of grief dug deeper.
They were gone. In the blind of an eye. Gone.
Vixin wrapped her arms around Zak and he clutched her middle, sobbing into her shirt. She tried to hold it together, but no amount of training could have prepared her for this. For the crushing pain of death.
Zak had made her a part of his family. And losing family hurt far worse than any wound she’d ever experienced.
Zak eventually separated himself from her and fell asleep in the corner. She must have fallen asleep too because the next time her eyes opened, she was freezing.
Vixin cocked her head to the side, trying to listen for any signs of movement. Her and Zak couldn’t hide forever.
She shifted the dirt with her magic and daylight greeted her through a small hole. Vixin took another moment to listen before widening the hole enough to poke her head out.
Nothing moved.
“Zak,” she whispered. “I think they’re gone.” Vixin shifted the plants away from the door and shoved it open. Afternoon sun blinded her for several seconds, but she climbed out anyway. “Come on, we have to get moving.”
She surveyed the area, her heart breaking at the site of the smoke rising from their home. She could see parts of the structure had collapsed but tried not to think who might be buried beneath.
Vixin jumped back into the hole. “Zak, we have to—”
She froze. The world faded and some small part of her that’d been barely holding it together fractured into a million little pieces.
“Zak?” Her voice broke, her entire world breaking with it.
She crawled across the small space and touched his hand only to recoil at the feel of icy skin. Her lips parted and a noise she didn’t recognize escaped her lips.
Vixin tried to breath. She wrestled with her lungs, fighting, and finally screamed.
Memories flooded blurry vision. The first time they’d met running through the woods. The first time she’d gone on a mission with him. Their first training session. Her first kiss.
Vixin’s jaw clenched and unclenched, her breathing rapid and shallow as an entirely new kind of pain lanced through her core.
Why?
Why?
Why?
She screamed the word, staring toward the heavens for some kind of answer.
She’d wasted time. So much precious time. If anyone knew what survival meant. What the consequences of failure were…
Vixin took a shuddering breath only to have another jolt of pain tighten around her chest.
Last night. That’s all she’d had with him.
She balled her fists and curled in on herself, clutching her heart as if she could hold it together. Vixin pressed her forehead to the ground and sob after sob tore through her tired body.
She didn’t know how long she stayed that way. She didn’t care.
Her breathing slowed and her chest loosened ever so slightly.
Vixin lifted her head to look at him, her eyes drifting to the blood on his shirt and wound in his stomach. If she’d had enough light, if she’d known, she might have been able to find Sam before—
They're all dead.
Vixin drew her knees into her chest and let the silence of the world take over. Why was she left behind? Why was she the only one who—more tears fell, but after what seemed like an eternity, Vixin struggled to her feet.
She stared at Zak. At the boy she’d tried to push away. At the boy who’d never given up.
With an aching heart, Vixin crawled from the cellar. She stood at its edge and finally called upon the wisteria to cover his body. It crawled over the wound first and then lilies bloomed, followed by roses and fauna.
She wouldn’t bury him in the place he feared. She’d let him sit in the sun, lost within a field of flowers that no one would ever disturb.
She took a breath and turned toward their damaged home. Or what was left of it. Vixin took a step forward, followed by another, unable to tear her gaze away. Fires had torn the base from its branches and smoke still rose as a reminder of the carnage.
She trudged toward it anyway, unable to stop herself even after seeing the first body.
An empty face. Another contorted in a scream. Then—
Vixin choked out a sob and hit her knees all over again. Sam.
Grief consumed her, tearing every bit of self-control from her grasp as she howled in sorrow and rage.
She clenched her teeth, biting the inside of her cheek and that depthless sorrow shifted into burning rage. She clawed at the ground then lifted her head in the direction of her enemy's camp.
Vixin placed one foot beneath her body and rose. Bloody. Aching. But far from broken.
Oh, so very far.
They’d pay. Every. Single. One.
Vixin wiped her tears and tried to ignore the faces as she lifted herself toward a section on the second floor. The section where her and Zak’s rooms sat side by side.
His was half charred but hers sat untouched. As if it’d been unworthy to join its neighbors in death.
