Page 89 of The Devil's Wrath

Tears, I realized.

He is crying.

I wanted to comfort him, to tell him everything would be okay, but the words wouldn’t come. My tongue felt thick and heavy in my mouth, and my breath came in shallow gasps. A cold numbness started to spread through my limbs, and I knew it was because my body was shunting any blood I had left to my vital organs.

Theo was shouting something, his voice desperate and pleading, but I couldn’t make out the words. He pressed down on my stomach, trying to stem the flow of blood, but it was no use. There was too much, and I was growing weaker by the second.

I thought of my brother and how we had been fighting in the last conversation I’d had with him. I wouldn’t be able to tell him sorry. I thought of the life I had dreamed of with Theo, a future that seemed impossibly out of reach now.

“Wren, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to get you help. Please don’t leave me,” he begged. “I love you. I can’t lose you.”

I tried to smile and offer him some small measure of comfort, but I couldn’t make my muscles obey. The world was fading in and out, the sounds of chaos and destruction growing distant and muted. As my vision went from light to dark, I saw Theo’s beautiful, anguished face hovering above me like a beacon in the darkness. I didn’t know if he was carrying me or if it was just a symptom of dying. I tried to focus on his face one last time, to memorize every detail—the curve of his jaw, the green depths of his eyes, the way his hair fell across his forehead. I wanted to carry that beautiful image with me into the darkness I had once craved; that craving now seemed like a distant dream.

And then the darkness claimed me, pulling me violently into its silent, endless depths. The last thing I heard was Theo’s anguished cry as he called my name, a sound that would haunt me even in the void. I floated in a sea of nothingness, suspended between life and death. Time lost all meaning in this place, and I had no sense of how long I drifted untethered and alone. There was no pain here, no fear, no sorrow. Just a profound sense of peace and a soft, enveloping warmth, like sinking into a warm bath at the end of a long day. Memories flashed through my mind like shards of a shattered mirror, each a bittersweet reminder of the life I had left behind.

Theo’s smiling face, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed. The feel of his arms around me, strong and safe. The taste of his lips on mine, sweet and intoxicating. I clung to those memories like a lifeline, desperate to hold on to some piece of him even as I felt myself slipping further and further away.

Then I heard something else.

The darkness swirled around me, but through it, I could hear my mother’s voice, a soothing melody I hadn’t heard in so long.

“Mom?” I called out into the dark.

Silence.

Was this some cruel joke from the afterlife?

“Wren, my darling girl,” she whispered, her voice a gentle caress against my soul.

I moved toward the sound, but my body felt weightless, untethered from the physical world. “Mom, where are you?” I called out again, my voice an echo.

A soft light glowed in the distance, just a tiny pinprick of warmth amidst the cold darkness. It grew larger and brighter until it resolved into the shape of a woman, her features blurred and indistinct.

But I knew it was her.

I could feel it in every fiber of my being.

“Wren, my darling.” The figure spoke. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Tears sprang to my eyes as I recognized her voice. It was a sound I had longed to hear every single day since she’d died. “Mom? Is it really you?”

She smiled, her face radiant and glowing with an ethereal light. “Yes, my sweet girl. I’m here.”

I ran to her, falling into her embrace as sobs wracked my body. Her arms enveloped me, and I buried my face in her shoulder.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”

She pulled back, cupping my face in her hands. “Shh, it’s not your fault, Wren. There was nothing you could have changed. What is done is done.”

“Where’s Dad? Is he here too?” I choked out.

“Only one of us could come see you.” She sighed. “But he sends his love.”

“Am I dead?” I asked her.

She shook her head, a sad smile playing at the corner of her lips. “Not yet, my love. You’re in between, caught between life and death.”

Hot tears slipped down my cheeks, mingling with the inky darkness. “I thought this was what I wanted, just so I could be with you and Dad, but now that I’m here, I-I’m not ready to leave him.”

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