To Be A Champion

Chapter 25: Save Your Tears

Have you ever felt so much guilt your veins stung?

Your muscles tore?

Your bones cracked and shattered under the weight of it all?

I have. More than once. Although it's been a long time since I felt it. The last time I felt so much guilt and grief was when we stopped Moonchild, the day I'd thought Simon died.

I'd forgotten how painful it is, how it steals the breath from your lungs, how it digs into the folds of your mind like the hooks of a parasite determined to drain the life out of you. It rips you from the inside out, tearing through the body like cheap fabric. It's like a hammer to glass, shattering you into a thousand pieces, leaving nothing behind but blood and tears and the unheard scream that echoes in your mind but can't seem to rip its way out of your throat.

It's a horrible, awful thing.

And there's nothing you can do to stop it.

It's been two days since Jones died. Two days since Amelia and the Undaunted came to the Far Hebrides. Two days since we found the control box smashed to bits.

Two days since Tom had blood work done.

Two days since the results showed traces of the nanites within his body.

There have been very few times since the horror of something drove me to sickness, but that horror combined with the overwhelming guilt led me to vomiting in one of the bathrooms until I no longer could, until I was heaving with nothing but bile and stomach acid snaking up my throat. It burned all the way and left a foul taste in my mouth that only made me heave more.

Sam found me like that. He was worried and searching for me to make sure I was alright, and to his horror, I was not. His heartbroken gaze did nothing but make me feel worse, as did his attempts to comfort me since I'm not the one who needed comfort. I saw this coming. Deep down, I know there's nothing I could have done. I even told Sam, Tom, and Nicole that when they found out about my vision. But it's so much easier to just hate myself, to irrationally put the blame on me because someone must be to blame. Jones is dead; Tom was just trying to do the right thing and stop Jones; Shona was reckless, yes, but she didn't know this would happen; Sam had nothing to do with it.

That just leaves me. As illogical as it is to my rational brain, the other part of me sees it as entirely normal.

Sam held me while I cried, sitting on the bathroom floor and ignoring the bits of vomit in my hair as it wasn't tied back when I mourned myself to sickness. He disregarded the rancid smell I had and simply held me as I wept, blubbering how it should have been me, how I wish to God it had been me.

Thankfully he didn't argue. I couldn't bear it if he had. Instead, he just held me until I tired myself out, with no more tears to cry and nothing left in my stomach to heave up.

Then he helped me shower, brush my teeth, and made me drink some water and bone broth to restore hydration and electrolytes before sending me to bed. I didn't tell him thank you until the following day.

I was thankful, truly. I still am, but my voice was hollow when I said it, and he noticed. Everyone noticed. When the pain and guilt of it all is so intense, I can't easily hide it, not like I used to.

Nicole was right when she said Abel made me lose my touch. I can't hide my emotions as well as I used to. But even she was kind enough to not taunt me for showing my guilt, instead assuring me that she and Tom, who claims he's feeling fine and will probably have no symptoms show up for many days or even a few weeks, are working on the nanite box in hopes to repair it.

I saw the pity in Nicole's eyes, something I didn't think I would ever see from her. It filled me with a deep, bone aching sadness and burning fury all at once.