by Amy Braun
The red pillar of light was gone, vanished through a hole in the wall that was at least twenty feet wide and twice as high.
I should have felt relieved that it was over. That I survived.
But the only thing I could do was cry, and feel the boy I loved slipping away from me.
Chapter 23
Sawyer
There are worse ways to die, I thought.
I could have been on the floors overhead, beaten to a pulp by Davin’s fist. The Vesper could have ripped my throat out and drained me dry. Hell, I could have been skewered on the Dauntless when we first arrived at the tower.
Being held close by the love of my life, hearing her tell me how much I meant to her, feeling her hands pushing against my chest and stomach, willing me to live… It wasn’t so bad. Yes, I was in a catastrophic amount of pain. The bruises, gashes, and broken bones all but ensured that I wouldn’t be able to move, but it was starting to fade. I could feel a pull at the back of my mind, a steady calling to go to sleep.
I knew I should fight it, but I was just so damn tired, and it was heartbreaking to watch Claire cry.
“I saw it, you know,” I whispered. My voice wasn’t strong enough for my regular speech.
“What?” she sobbed. Her tears dropped onto my bloody face. I wished I had the strength to wipe them from her eyes. Claire was beautiful no matter what she did, but I wanted to see her smile again.
“You kicking the Vesper into that lightning bolt.” I managed a smirk, though it felt like I was trying to tear open my face. “Talk about going down in flames.”
Claire’s laugh hitched in her throat. She bowed her head and held me tight. I closed my eyes, breathing in her warm, honey scent. The one she always had, no matter how dirty she was.
That dark pull dragged me a little deeper into oblivion.
Until I was rattled awake. “Sawyer! Sawyer!”
I blinked reluctantly, my eyes adjusting to the brighter lights. I looked up into beautiful green eyes that were filled with pain. It took a long time for something like a smile to come to my face.
“Hey, Firecracker.”
She cried and shook her head. “Don’t close your eyes. You can’t close them now.” She pushed on the wounds in my chest and stomach. I grimaced at the pain.
I looked at her sadly. “It’s going to happen eventually.”
“No,” she protested. She grabbed the edges of her shirt and ripped strips from the bottom. My blood had coated her hands. “No, it’s not. You’re stronger than this. We didn’t come all this way, go through everything we did for you to give up now.”
“I’m not giving up,” I said, though it tasted like a lie. I smirked as part of her pale stomach was exposed. “Much as I want to see you tearing off your clothes for me… Firecracker… I’m feeling really tired.”
“You’re staying awake, no matter what I have to do to keep you that way,” she argued, wrapping the strips of fabric around the wound in my chest and then another set around the oozing holes in my gut. She tightened the knots a little too tightly, causing me to hiss. Claire pulled back with worry, but didn’t stop her improvised doctoring.
I smiled, loving her ferocity. Claire was tenacious in everything she did.
“I’ll find a way to fix you,” she promised.
I held the smile in place, unable to tell her the truth. That I could feel my blood pouring out of me with an ever fading pulse. Unless Claire had a skiff and a sewing kit stowed away, there wasn’t anything she could do.
I felt her body lower against mine. She was resting on my chest and stomach, using her body as pressure to keep the blood away. I wished I had the strength to wrap my arms around her.
“Do you remember the day we met?” she whispered.
I chuckled, and it turned into a cough. “How could… I forget? You… punched me… in the face.”
From that moment on, I’d known I would remember her. I hadn’t intended to fall in love with her. But now I wasn’t surprised that I had.
There was no one in the world as brave, as strong, as beautiful as my Claire.
She bowed her head and kissed me deeply. Passionately. She wasn’t saying goodbye. She refused.
“You didn’t give up on me that day, Sawyer,” Claire said after she pulled back. “You don’t get to give up now.”
I still had enough strength left to curl my lips and smile at her. I could do that for her, even if it hurt.
I’m going to miss her so much.
The damage had been done. My body was shutting down from too many wounds. Fighting was just exhausting me further. Yet I couldn’t tell Claire to leave me to my fate. I wanted to believe her, to avoid the inevitable. To have a true chance to be with her.
I didn’t want to take that hope away from her, to tell her that I was the one thing she couldn’t fix.
Except she had. I was a bastard before, even to my friends. She changed that. She made me more. Better. I owe her so much for that.
And now I can’t repay it.
I rolled my head slightly, breathing into her hair. It was a tangled mess that smelled like dirt, oil, and blood, but it was soft and warm. Somehow, it reminded me of everything she had been through and survived. Strange as it was, it reminded me of home.
My eyes burned, and I squeezed them shut. A tear leaked out of the corner of my eye and slid down my temple.
“I love you,” I murmured, not sure if she heard me, and needing to say it one last time.
All of my senses weakened. I couldn’t open my eyes. I stopped feeling the warmth of Claire, couldn’t distinguish the scents in her hair. Noises drifted into the background. Something that sounded like the low, distant hum of a skiff. Voices that seemed eerily familiar shouting what sounded like names.
Claire pushed herself up– No, no come back– and her hands crushed against my bloody chest and stomach. I groaned at the jolt of pain, her desperate effort to keep me alive. She started shouting back, telling the voices where we were.
Then her lips were on mine, and all I wanted was for her to stay there.
But she was my Claire, and she had a habit of not always doing what I wanted her to.
“Stay with me, Sawyer,” she breathed to me. “We’re getting you help. Just stay with me.”
I am with you, I thought drearily. I’ve always been with you, Firecracker.
I opened my eyes to look at her again, one last time, but my vision was foggy. I thought I saw the shapes of faces that looked like Gemma and Nash. A woman with blonde hair who reminded me of Claire. The shocked look on my love’s face when she saw the older woman.
My heart beat with quiet, weak thumps. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t see anymore. Something scooped me up and I felt my head sway.
Then there was nothing but blackness and silence…
Chapter 24
Claire
I hadn’t left Sawyer’s side since we returned with him to the Dauntless Wanderer. Memories of Gemma and Nash explaining what happened to me were cloudy.
Subconsciously, I remembered them telling me that when they returned to the Dauntless, reinforcements had arrived.
My mother’s reinforcements.
Apparently, she grew tired of waiting and wanted to bring more help. The soldiers and volunteers she brought with her quickly moved around the deck to tend the wounds of the injured and wrap the bodies of the dead.
When they saw the red lightning detonate a side of the Dark Spire and spiral into the wildness of Hellnore, she refused to sit back. She, Gemma, and Nash gathered a small skiff with some volunteers and came to see what was going on. Once they did, they wasted no time in getting us out of the tower so Sawyer could be tended to.
I stayed with him the whole time, taking my hand from his only once to fall to my knees and hug my weeping baby sister.
Hours later, as we sailed through the Breach and back into Aon, I sat by his side in his cabin, holding his hand while he slept on the bed. Sawyer’s broken bones had been set and w
rapped, though the pain was intense enough to keep him unconscious. While he rested, my mother had fixed another device to him. It was similar to the blood-giving machine that I’d seen in the factory with Riley. I shuddered the first time I saw it pumping blood into Sawyer, though I was assured this blood type was compatible with him, and that he needed to replace what was lost. The punctures in his stomach had missed his intestines and needed to be stitched, and the stab wound in his chest missed his heart by half an inch, but there was still a lot of healing to be done.
“He’ll live, Claire.”
My shoulders tensed when my mother said my name. She hadn’t left either, monitoring the machine helping Sawyer, and trying to meet my eyes the whole time.
After our rescue, I’d barely looked at her. I knew I should, that there was so much we needed to talk about, but I was an emotional mess right now. I wasn’t sure I could handle speaking to her when Sawyer was still hovering on the brink of death.
“When he’s better, we’ll return to the Breach and finish destroying the storm-maker and the Dark Spire. As far as we can tell, all of the remaining Hellions died when the Vesper did. The terrain won’t be safe, but we won’t be caught in battle.”
My eyes were fixed on Sawyer, but the words that drifted from my lips weren’t for him.
“Why did you leave?”
My mother stood silent behind me. My eyes began to sting as more questions poured out.
“What were you trying to do that was more important that us? Why did you never look for us?”
I couldn’t have hid the pain in my voice if I tried. I was raw. Vulnerable. Things I no longer wanted to be.
A sad sigh came from my mother. She walked to the trunk I was sitting on and knelt down. Carefully, she pried one of my hands from Sawyer’s. I looked at her, seeing the anguish in her eyes. I was holding back my tears. My mother wasn’t.
She clutched my hand in hers as if she were praying. She kissed my fingers.
“I’m so sorry, Claire. I’m more sorry than you can ever know. After what happened with the Discovery and the Breach, The Storm… I couldn’t let it unfold the way it did. I had to do something to make it right. I thought I could do that with both of my girls by my side. But the more the Hellions attacked, the more I understood that I was a target. The Vesper remembered me, and what I did with the Palisade. Those Hellions that attacked us the night I left… they were sent specifically to find me.”
My chest constricted when I remembered that night. Holding Abby in my arms as she cried. Not understanding what my mother was saying or why she wasn’t coming with us.
“I didn’t expect to live,” she confessed. “When I did, the first thing I wanted to do was find you both. I was at the door of Elsa and Andrew’s home. I knew that sending you to them would keep you safe.”
I remembered our neighbor’s home. Sitting in front of their door every night, waiting for my mother to walk through it and hold me again. My heart breaking a little more every night that door remained shut.
Fresh tears spilled from my mother’s eyes. Her breathing became ragged with sorrow.
“But I knew the Hellions would hunt me again. I couldn’t bring you both into that. I wanted to keep you safe, and leaving was the only way I knew how.”
“But we weren’t safe,” I said, barely holding onto my calm. “We’ve never been safe.”
A sob burst from my mother’s lips. She quickly covered it with one of her hands.
“I know,” she cried. “I know, and I will never forgive myself for that.”
Silence passed between us for a long time before my mother raised her head and looked at me with desperate eyes.
“Please, Claire, I love you. I love you and your sister so much. I made a thousand mistakes all those years ago, but you and Abby are the ones that kill me.” She squeezed my hand. “Is there any way you will be able to forgive me?”
I considered everything that she’d done. Leaving me alone to raise Abby for ten years. Never seeking us because she thought we’d be safe. The burdens she placed on me to carry on her work in case the Hellions found her. Working with Sawyer to launch an attack on the Vesper. Saving his life.
It was a lot to comprehend, especially given what I had done. I’d reacted the same way she had–given up almost everything, sacrificed myself, built a machine, confronted an unspeakable monster, to save the lives of those I loved. I was more like my mother than I realized.
And… That wasn’t a bad thing.
I believed her words, and despite it all, she was my mother. I would always love her.
But love and forgiveness weren’t always the same thing.
“I don’t know,” I admitted quietly. “I need time.”
My mother nodded, but her shoulders slumped visibly. I tightened my grip on her hand.
“But I’m not angry. And I’ll never forget that in the end, you saved my life.”
Hope glistened in her eyes. It wasn’t the forgiveness she was looking for, but it was enough for now. She smiled and nodded. She released my hand and rose to her feet.
“I’ll let you stay with him.” She glanced at Sawyer. “He’s a good man. Better than his father and brother. You should have seen him when he was looking for you, Claire. The only person I’ve ever known to show that much love to another woman was your father.”
Fresh tears filled her eyes, and mine. I knew she’d fallen in love with another man, but in the back of her mind, my father would always be the love of her life. I nodded silently.
She pressed a kiss to my forehead and bade me goodnight. I watched her start to leave.
I got to my feet and wrapped my arms around her as tight as I could.
“I missed you, Mom,” I whispered.
Her arms went around me, gently, the way they had so many times when I was a little girl. This wouldn’t make up for all the time we’d lost. But for now, it was enough.
More than enough.
“I missed you too, Claire. I’m so proud of you. You grew into a better woman than I could ever imagine. I love you.”
We embraced for what felt like hours. What should have been days. After a time, she released me and smiled. She stepped back and exited the room, gently closing the cabin door behind her.
“Good to know I’ve got your mother’s approval.”
I whipped my head around at the sound of Sawyer’s voice. It was tired and slurred from sleep, but the roguish smirk and warm light in his golden eyes… That was all him.
I raced back to the bed and bent down to kissed him harder than I should have. I felt Sawyer laugh against my lips, his hand gently sifting through my hair. I held my lips to his for a long time, then finally pulled back and looked over his face.
“How are you feeling?” I asked softly.
Sawyer grinned and wrapped a hand around my waist, pulling me onto the bed. I hovered over his body, not wanting to put pressure on his wounds and cause him more pain. “Much better now.”
“You should be resting,” I said. My voice turned a little husky when his fingers trailed under my shirt and caressed the small of my back.
