~Sucre ~
She is scarcely breathing when I found her, unable to speak, pink tears of blood tracking from her dazed eyes. Her skin burns as though with fever, so I rush her into the bath and fiddle with the unfamiliar dial until icy water streams out. I pull us both under it.
After several minutes she coughs, breathes deep, then goes limp again. I gather her closer with the crook of my arm and hold her there, and I think of Rafe still outside, his voice cutting through the door — every word a blade aimed at the softest part of me. How selfish I have always been. How I abandoned the pack at its most fragile point.
I tell myself I don't care if they hurt. I hurt too. And it is all because of her kindred. But everyone should pay for their own sins. Hurting a girl they have already condemned to die is not justice. It is cruelty dressed up as punishment, and I want no part of it.
