116 | DEATH COMES CALLING
Everything happens in bursts of conciousness. Paris and Ryker show up a few seconds after I stop screaming, their words muffled as they try to pull me away from Mom. But I refuse to leave her side, nearly tearing out Ry’s throat when he grabs me, and he promptly releases me. I have to actively fight the protectiveness I feel over her body, shoving the wolf down to keep the shift from taking me. Paris and Ry disappear after trying to get me to stop crying and sobbing, their voices worried and confused.
When they’re gone, time seems to slow to a crawl, dragging by and marked only by the excruciating feeling in my chest. It’s not until I sniff loudly that I realize I’m no longer alone. The cloying scent of Death is hanging in the air.
I look up, my eyes aching and swollen from all the crying, even as more tears are streaming down my cheeks. I see her immediately, standing on the other side of the small bed. Practically glowing, the woman in white has her huge hood pulled up to cover her face, a long staff in one hand with a wickedly curved blade protruding from one end. All the breath whooshes out of my chest and my grip on Mom tightens, my eyes going wide.
“You can’t.” I choke out roughly as the white-cloaked figure lowers their hood. Nikki gives me a look of sorrow - the first real emotion I’ve seen on the Ancient’s face.
“This is the way of things, Scarlett.” Nikki tells me softly, but doesn’t move to come any closer.
“I still need her.” I sob, unable to stop the fresh tears as they cloud my vision and stream down my cheeks.
“No, you don’t.” Nikki replies gently. I glare at her, gritting my teeth as I do. I want nothing more than to rush the Ancient and rip her throat out. “Her life is now complete. Your mother’s soul cannot remain on this plane for long without terrible consequences.” *Terrible consequences*. Her words are spoken with a sort of weight, one I feel dragging on my soul and making my whole body shudder with an unknown chill.
Something in me whispers that Nikki is right: Mom staying here would be a fate worse than whatever waits beyond.
“Wh-where are you taking her?” I ask, my chin quivering as I clutch at my mom’s body, trying desperately to keep her here.
“To the next life.” Nikki replies simply.
“Where?” I insist through clenched teeth. Nikki lets out a sigh and makes a gesture. Suddenly, something shimmers into existence beside her. Something swirling and dark- and yet, there’s a gentle warmth emanating from it. Like sunshine on a cloudless day. The scent of sweet flowers and freshly turned earth follow, and an almost imperceptible hum of a stream. Instantly, my hold loosens a little. An overwhelming calm washes over me from the weird hole in the air, something soothing touches the ache in my chest and I let out a gasp.
“It’s different for everyone.” Nikki suddenly says aloud, but when I look up, I see she’s no longer looking at me, but at the empty space beside the hole. Hope and horror lance through me as I consider the possibility that Nikki isn’t just talking to herself.
“Is-is-” I choke on the question, my eyes now overflowing once more with too-hot tears that only seem to make the pain in my chest worse. I look between Nikki and the space she seems to be speaking with. “Is she-?” My voice cracks and I have to press a hand to my mouth to stop a sob from spilling out.
“Your mother loves you dearly,” Nikki sighs, letting the end of her long-staffed weapon touch the ground. The Ancient seems to be leaning on the thing, letting it carry some of her weight as she looks to me calmly. “Unconditionally. For eternity.” Her words makes my eyes burn once more, the pricking heat more like icicles stabbing into my tear ducts than pinpricks.
“I love you, too,” I look to the space where Nikki had been speaking, mentally imagining Mom standing there, looking at me. And, for a second, the air their shimmers, a ghostly form only just visible. I stare for the second it’s there, then it flickers into nothingness. But I saw her face, healthy and bright, for that second. The smile warm and peaceful. My heart shatters further, but it’s warmer now, the smallest hints of relief making the pain a degree less agonizing. A half-choked sob bursts from my throat and I watch as Nikki nods to the space.
The shimmering form reappears, blinking in and out of existence as it closes the distance to the portal. Right before the form reaches the black hole, it turns, Mom’s face ghostly as it materializes for a moment. She smiles at me one last time before stepping through the hole and disappearing in a shimmer of golden light.
When the light fades, both Mom’s ethereal form and Nikki are gone.
- - - -
Some time later, strong arms wrap around me, pulling me away from Mom’s cold corpse and into a familiar furnace-like heat. I’m so wiped out that I don’t struggle as Blue lifts me off the ground, murmuring soft words of consolation as I’m removed from the room. I manage to comprehend that we’re not alone, Hale marches past us on our way out, his face a mask of nothing, but his evergreen eyes burning and rimmed in puffy red. Yuri pops in and out of my field of vision, silent and somber as Blue carries me to, if my mental compass is accurate, back to Kiwina.
Time’s back to moving in jerky spurts around me, or maybe it’s just my conciousness slipping in and out? But the next thing I know, I’m laying in bed, in my room…the room Mom and I once shared. I’m staring silently at the far side of the room that once housed Mom’s cot… It’s empty now, cleared out weeks ago when Blue and I started sharing this room instead. Heat bursts behind my eyes and the constant throb of loss in my chest swells up to choke me.
I shut my eyes against the pain, letting it wash over me, rolling like an unstoppable force that consumes me and throws me into the dark abyss of sleep. Before I completely loose conscience, I note the arms wrapped around me and the familiar strong body of my mate laying behind me. His mental presence soothes the sharper edges of loss in me, but it’s not enough to stop the flood of sorrow spilling from my soul. I have just enough presence of mind to know if he wasn’t here right now that I wouldn’t be coping as well as I currently am. Even if I can’t seem to manage more than breathing right now.
I’m grateful, letting the slight relief take the edge off the lancing pain, even as my mind goes blissfully blank, and I slip into a dreamless sleep.
