This one is years after, the morning Sophie arrived at Exillium when Tam and Linh are talking before heading to Exillium.
tw: hospital, d//th, m//der
"We can't do this anymore."
The words escaped Tam's mouth before he could stop them, not that he would. It was true. This needed to end.
Linh gasped and grabbed on to his hand. "Tam. You know we have to."
She didn't even ask what they were talking about. They both knew each other too well to be in doubt. But that didn't mean they agreed on the same thing.
"Linh. You just came back from weeks of healing. You were almost dead. I promised you I would protect you. And I failed you once. It won't happen again. But the only way to do that is to leave."
"I'm not dead. You did protect me. You slowed my fall before I hit the rocks. I would be dead if it weren't for you. If that isn't protection, I don't know what is."
"Linh! Someone pushed you off a cliff!"
Linh clenched her fists, expressing rare anger. "I know. And I hate that. But we can't leave."
"Why?"
Linh placed her hands on Tam's. "We're both 15. We could survive on our own. I want to leave too. But the gnomes."
Tam slumped and covered his face with his hands, to hide the tears in his eyes. The gnomes they lived with were getting sick. Linh and he were trying to help them, but they didn't even know what was wrong. The trees were also dying. It was a plague.
They couldn't leave Wildwood Colony alone.
"Fine. You're right."
"I wish I weren't." Linh choked back a sob. Tam tried to stop the tears leaking from his eyes. His sister had almost been murdered two weeks ago. But no one believed them when they said Linh was pushed.
But Tam had seen. A hand draped in red fabric had reached out, causing Linh to be shoved off the cliff, hurtling towards the sharp rocks and crashing waves.
Tam had managed to lessen her fall with levitation. But she'd still hit her head hard and had been in a coma for almost a week. And then it took longer to heal because Exillium didn't have enough medical supplies, and even the ones they had were pretty bad.
Linh had almost died.
Tam couldn't get over it.
They'd known Exillium was bad. They'd gone here for years already. They'd almost died often. But this time, someone was trying to kill them. It wasn't safe. They should run away.
But they couldn't leave the gnomes, their new family alone. Especially when they were also almost dying, because of a mysterious plague.
Tam noticed that his vision had gone blurry. He tried to blink back his tears. He had to stay strong. He had to protect her.
Linh hugged Tam, not showing pain when Tam accidentally touched one of her wounds. Why was it feeling like she was the one protecting him?
Tam knew Linh was strong. He always had. But for some reason right now it was hitting him hard, that he was the one crying while Linh was comforting him.
Nothing had ever made Tam cry. Not being yelled at, or hated, or banished. But now that his sister, the one person he loved more than anything else in the world, was being threatened, he couldn't...
He couldn't do this.
He was giving up.
