AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I didn’t even think as I spun around, my hands shoving out on impulse and pushing the person away.
Her body coasted backward, tripping over a tree branch, legs kicking up into the air. She shrieked, making the most noise I’d ever heard from her.
A crack, loud enough to rival all the dogs together, broke out into the night. As I stepped forward, blood covered my feet and the grass, brown hair matted atop it, and brown eyes, covered in a film of death, fixed on me.
The name given to her balanced on my tongue, but I couldn’t call it out.
I couldn’t say anything.
My chest pushed out and caved in with each breath. Breaths, I felt I didn’t deserve to have.
Tears fell from my eyes as I blinked at the image of what I’d done.
I’d killed someone.
And she was there at my feet. Gone. Her head smashed against a rock.
That girl would have someone, somewhere, looking for her. She probably had a family who would never find her.
A crack formed in my heart, the area tightening as I wheezed another breath. Heaviness flooded my broken heart, moving down my arms.
I tried to reach for her, for a gentle touch to tell her how sorry I was. That I forgave her for what she’d done to me, and I hoped she could do the same.
But my heart couldn’t take any more pain.
Tears continued to drop, and I found myself edging away from her and from the noise zeroing in.
And then, I ran.
Remi
The dogs were nearby as I drifted through trees, their starving forms feasting on and fighting over something on the ground—someone.
Miss Silent.
They licked at the blood leaking from her head.
Fighting off the animals wasn’t what killed her. Her blade was nowhere to be seen, and the little yellow handle wasn’t buried in one of the mutts’ fur.
My legs rushed off in search of Cat. I avoided the bloodhounds by sticking outside of their view to find her first.
Instinct pulled me to a thicket of trees, and I saw her weaving between them with that yellow handle lodged in her shoulder.
Moving to the edge, I used my height to my advantage, and my long legs gained on her quickly.
I waited behind the thickest of tree trunks, and as her struggling body ran by me, I grabbed her from behind. Her legs caught on the rising tree roots, and she fell into my arms, knocking the blade that I’d tried to be so careful with, deeper into her skin.
Her scream was silenced by my hand.
“It’s me,” I whispered from behind, my bloodstained hand slinking around her waist. “You’re safe.”
Her whispering touches peeled my hand from her mouth, and my fingers dropped, feeling down her jaw to her shoulder, examining the depth of the blade and what damage it might have done.
She still struggled to breathe, even with my hands nowhere near her mouth.
She didn’t focus on that. But her struggle was all I could see, all I could feel in my bones.
Her hand brushed mine, slowly moving to her chest, nursing the internal pain when she said, “I did something bad. I kill—”
