Page 102 of Whisper of Nightmares

Dread cracks her in two.

“No! Wait!” Euphemia charges forward.

But the third woman who remained on the ground whips her shield out. Before Euphemia can collide into it, before she becomes all claws and sharp teeth ready to mangle this twisted angel limb from limb for trying to stand between her and her father, familiar arms wrap around her waist.

Ash hoists her away.

“Let me go!” Euphemia thrashes, but his grasp is as firm as ever.

“They’re taking him to Valhalla,” he grunts in her ear, clearly straining from trying to contain a rabid animal. “It’s better there. It’s where he belongs.”

“No!” Euphemia shakes her head, sadness like a battering ram against her ribs. “He belongs with me! He belongs with my family! Give him back!”

She screams up into the Heavens.

She keeps screaming until the three shadows disappear into the light.

Only then does she become limp in Ash’s arms.

The final angel walks over to her father’s pile of ashes. She thrusts her shield at it, and the ashes blow away in the wind. All traces of her father…vanished.

Then the angel joins the others in the sky, and the light finally blinks away.

Ash gently releases her, slowly lowering her to the ground as he does.

Euphemia slumps over, cradling her head, sobbing into the damp earth.

They took him.

Every part of him.

Gone.

Somewhere in her heart, she knows that isn’t true. Knows there’s a part of him inside her still. But it will not be today that she acknowledges it.

Today, all she feels is an aching pit of despair. A chasm that’s erupted in her chest. A heart that feels more like it’s festering than bleeding.

Because somehow she knows the finality of what just occurred.

Understands it inherently, deep in her bones.

This was the last time she will see her father…

This was her goodbye.

And Euphemia has never regretted anything more.

Euphemia shouldn’t have stayed. The moment the nightmare appeared, she should’ve run as fast and far as she could. Then her father would still be here. At least she could’ve still seen him once more.

As her sorrow shifts from sobbing to hyperventilation, a hand strokes her back.

Euphemia whirls on him—on the beast of a man whom she had trusted.

“Stay away from me!” She holds out her arm, keeping him at bay even though he does not advance. “Why have you been following me?”

When he answers, the words come slowly. “I…thought we were helping each other.”

Euphemia’s jaw snaps open with a humorless, wretched laugh.