Page 33 of Renegade Queen

The backs of my eyes itched from the stress of holding all my emotions inside. Alyssa and Ryder’s whispering behind me wasn’t helping.

I knew what they were thinking. Look at poor Maddox, unable to accept that his brother is gone.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew it was a possibility. But I couldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. I couldn’t give up on Damon. He never gave up on me.

The creature inside me rubbed against my skin. It was the strangest feeling, almost like the echo of someone else’s emotions at the back of my mind. It should have been terrifying, but it wasn’t. If anything, there was something comforting about it. I could never be alone now. Especially not now that Damon was…

Dean glanced over his shoulder at me, his ever-present frown deepening even further.

He’d always been the strong one.

And seeing Dean’s version of scared, was nearly as weird as watching Ryder behave like a normal person. I knew them both well enough to know this was them screaming about how on edge they both were.

Unable to face the tension on Dean’s face any longer, my eyes darted behind him, and I could see the clearing ahead of us.

My stomach felt like it was about to drop out of my ass. I’d walked into uncertain battles before; I’d even been shot. But I’d never experienced terror like this. Never had that strangling sensation of hysteria gripping my throat and being utterly incapable of deciding whether I should fight it.

Tank stopped, and the guy formed a wall in front of me. How could he not? He was fucking huge. I didn’t even try to push past him. My feet stopped on their own as that terror flooded the rest of my body.

Because this was the moment that would change my life forever.

Here, in these few seconds, Damon was still alive.

My world was slowly collapsing around me, but I was still clinging to the ruins for a few brief seconds, and the memories were enough to keep me afloat. I couldn’t lose those. I couldn’t lose Damon. He was the only member of my family that didn’t take one look at me and decide I wasn’t worth it. He fought for me. He always had. He let me know I was worth something and that all we needed to survive was each other.

Ryder moved past me, he and Dean pushing forward like it wouldn’t hurt them as much. Except I knew they’d be just as crushed as I was. They owed him just as much as I did.

Only Alyssa stopped at my side. I automatically winced, expecting some kind of platitude from her and not wanting to feel the pain of it grating against the fear threatening to overtake me.

Instead, she gently reached out, taking my hand in hers.

It wasn’t the first time I’d held a woman’s hand in mine, but this wasn’t like what I’d experienced before. That raging terror, my galloping heartbeat, and the spiralling scream in my mind… just stopped.

She gently squeezed my hand, and it was almost like my heart took that as a sign to beat again. A single breath rushed out of me that I hadn’t even realised I was holding.

“We’ve got you,” she told me firmly.

When I looked up from our clasped hands, I found Ryder and Dean in front of me. They hadn’t pushed through to the clearing like I’d thought they had. Instead, they’d stopped in front of me, blocking the view behind them until I was ready to face the inevitable.

I might be losing a brother today, but I’d never forget the two who solidly stood supporting me right now.

And there was no doubt in my mind that it was finally happening. Because I could smell that lingering smell of rot in the air, I saw how Tank had frozen in horror, unable to pull his eyes away from the scene in front of him.

Something about the big bear being scared felt wrong. If he couldn’t face whatever happened in that clearing, the rest of us would surely be driven insane by the sight.

When Dean moved to stand at Tank’s side, I felt like a coward. It should have been me looking to see what my brother’s last moments had been like. Surely I owed him that much, to look at his pain and endure it for him, even if he was already gone. Yet, I still couldn’t move my feet from where I stood.

“What did this?” Dean asked.

No one answered. Fizzle probably knew, but for some reason, even he seemed reluctant to be in this place as he shuffled along Tank’s shoulder and pressed against the side of his head.

“I’ll be right back,” Alyssa told me. “I need to… I need to figure out what happened here,” she finally said with a sigh.

I could tell she didn’t want to. It was evident from the conversation that she’d had with Fizzle that she wasn’t a stranger to scenes like this. And I hated that I was probably making her relive the whole thing because we’d dragged her back here.

As her hand pulled away from mine, I resisted the urge to hold on tighter. I was left with just Ryder standing between me and what I couldn’t face. The grim look on his face was freaking me out nearly as much. I needed him to goof about or crack some inappropriate joke to make the world seem right again.

Alyssa didn’t walk into the clearing. She stood between Dean and Tank as she surveyed whatever lay before them. I watched as Dean gently placed his hand on the small of her back, and my eyes fixated on that point. It was such a casual move, yet it wasn’t one I thought I’d ever seen him make.