My reason to keep going

"What the hell have you done!"
My heart stopped immediately, and I felt the panic in me rise. We had no time to deal with Nancy, not if we wanted to save Lucien who was currently bleeding out.
"I... I" But before I could make up an excuse or a plea, Nancy fell hard to the ground and suddenly, she was motionless. I looked at her for a moment, and then my eyes moved curiously up towards the person responsible for her sudden lack of consciousness. To my surprise, it was Oliver, who glanced panicked at the body of Lucien in front of me.
"The fuck! This fucking idiot." He uttered out before rushing to Lucien.
I was so surprised to see him so concerned about Lucien, especially since I'd assumed him to be a heartless bastard. I had no time to question it, however, and reverted my focus back to Lucien.
"Can we try taking the bullet out?" I asked.
Oliver shook his head, no, and said, "It's the same type of wolfsbane that was in the blade we shoved into Nancy, only stronger. It won't let him heal; he'll bleed out if we don't act quickly." Oliver uttered out. Next to him, Damon removed his shirt from his body and began pressing it into the wound, in the futile hope that it would, by some miracle slow the bleeding down.
Lucien attempted to stop him, but his strength was dwindling, and his breathing was becoming difficult and staggered. Damon growled lowly and shook his head. "Stop it, Lucien! I'm trying to save you!"
"I don't want to be saved! Just let me fucking die!" He yelled out, now in tears. It broke my heart to see him like this: hopeless and in pain. Was this truly what he wanted? To die?
"That's not going to be much help, Damon. We're going to need to get to a healer, preferably in the next half an hour." He said.
Damon looked around frantically and then said, "But I don't even know where the hell we are."
Neither Damon, nor I knew where we were. It had been so long since I’d been home that I barely knew this place at all, and the truth was, that I didn’t care to find out more about it. And that was the most frightening part of this all. Lucien was dying and we had no idea how to save him.
"I may know someone somewhere around here. But I can't guarantee we'll get there in time." Oliver said, looking towards the open door. Damon nodded and, to my surprise, placed his hand on Oliver's shoulder, leaving me speechless. "We need to try."
But Lucien was not at all on board with this idea. "If you save me, then you kill all the people I've captured." Lucien uttered out. He then looked towards Oliver and gave a curt nod. One which Oliver shook his head at.
"What's with the nod?" I asked in panicked curiosity.
"Oliver will tell my people to take you to where we've hid your friends. S-save them, not me."
But I shook my head at him frantically. I wanted to save the people I loved, and that *included* Lucien.
"I'm not going to let you die." I said.
Oliver nodded his head in agreement with me, which honestly was the last thing I imagined Oliver ever doing. Then, he said, "Nobody here is letting you die, Lucien. You are not allowed to die."
He then turned towards Damon and raised his brows as he said, sternly, "I don't want Loren to die either, Damon, so I'm asking you nicely to go and find them. You can take my car and someone from Lucien's team to show you the way. Jasmine and I will take the van and look for the healer we need."
As expected, Damon refused, wanting both he and I to be together. I could not say I was against the idea. I wanted him to be as close to me as possible. Especially after all of what we had been through. But on the other hand, I didn't want to leave Lucien's side. I couldn't. If these were possibly his final moments, I wanted to spend every single second with him. And so, I refused to partake in the argument Oliver and Damon were engaging in, instead I took Lucien's hand in mine again and placed it against my lips. And it was at this moment that I realised, I was no longer scared of Lucien, I was sad for him.
Eventually, Damon and Oliver halted their argument when Oliver leaned towards him and whispered something to him. For a moment, Damon had this uncertain look on his face. He then glanced towards me, glanced at my hand in Lucien's and then sighed. "Fine. I'll go and free the captives. You and Jasmine look for the healer."
Damon then neared me, wrapped his arms around my body and then hugged me as tightly as he could before he uttered, "Whatever happens, know that I love you. Stay safe."
"I love you too, and stay safe as well. I want you back in my arms when this is all over." I said, before letting him go.
I was surprised that Damon had given in to Oliver, and, as Oliver helped me to carry Lucien's body to the van, I wondered what he had said to Damon.
The entire time, Lucien struggled and protested and as a result, I was tasked with sitting in the back with him.
"Jennifer!" Oliver called out to one of the werewolves in black. A small, blond young lady came running towards the van. "Sit in the back of the van with Jasmine and Lucien. Make sure that you help her keep my cousin alive, your life, depends on it."
She nodded curtly and then joined Lucien and me in the back of the van. She uttered no word to me, instead, she sat in the corner, staring at the pool of blood forming on the bottom of the van. I saw the panic in her eyes as she watched it trickle along the metal and it did nothing, if not aggravate my own panic, and soon I found myself clutching onto Damon's shirt, pushing it against Lucien's body.
"You know I am going to die?" He uttered out as he lay in my lap.
I shook my head, fighting off my tears. "No, you're not. You're not going to die."
"I thought you would have been happy. I won't bother you anymore. You will no longer have to be afraid of me."
"How could you say that? I'll admit that at one stage through all of this, I wanted you dead. I wanted to rid myself of you, because having you around is so tiring... but I realise now that I cannot imagine a world where you don't exist."
When I said this, he tilted his head slightly and stared deeper into my eyes before uttering, "But I can't live in a world where you aren't mine."
"I don't belong to anyone, Lucien. And I may not feel for you what I do for Damon, but I do love you."
"Y-you love me?" He uttered out in a whisper and a tear made its way down his face and then travelled down to his chin.
I nodded and leaned down so that my forehead was against his.
"You saved me. A little girl, with nothing and no one. You were my first someone, my first smile, my first laugh, my first hand to hold when I was shivering, cold and lost. For that, I will always love you. So, live for me, Lucien, because for a long time, you were my reason to keep going on."
And that seemed to catch his attention. "I was?"
I hummed in response and let a tear fall from my cheek onto his.
"B-but I can't live for you. I'm just like-"
"You and Damon are idiots. No, you're not like your father. You can't be. You've just let him take over who you really are. The man who welcomed me with open arms into his life. The man who taught me how to read and write and who stayed up all night with me when I couldn't sleep. You have just forgotten it in your loneliness. But you don't have to be lonely anymore, because for once, I understand it all. Why, how and when this all began and who is responsible. You did nothing wrong, your father did, and his mistakes have been haunting you."
"I... I don't want to hurt you."
"And you won't." I don't know why I said this, it just seemed the right thing to say. I was certain that he could no longer hurt me anymore. He'd shown too much of himself, been too weak and was now too sore with the pain he'd bottled up to even think of inflicting it on anyone else.
For a moment, Lucien just stayed silent, and I wondered if he'd grown too frail to speak- something which sent another fresh rush of panic in me. But then he let out a little sniffle and asked, "You want me to live… for you?"
"Yes. I want you to live for me... and I want you to live for you, because you still have so many people who are waiting and wanting to forgive you. You just need to give them a reason, and to do that, you need to be alive."
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There are two chapters left after this one!
Stay safe! Stay healthy! Sending my love!