Steel

Chapter 46

A sob tumbled past my lips and my hand on my good arm quickly flew up in an attempt to stop it. I didn't even know these people's names, I had no right to cry over them. Not when I was still breathing. I hadn't sacrificed enough to be able to mourn them. I did not deserve that pleasure.

I squeezed my eyelids tight, scalding tears streaming down my cheeks as I turned away from the Angel's body and kept moving onward. Every body of an Angel or mortal soul I'd passed, I now forced myself to look. I forced myself to look, and to not cry. This was what I had done. This is what I would have to live with.

By the time the buildings around me had begun to morph into towers, I'd been holding my breath for several minutes to keep myself from crying. I didn't deserve to cry over them. Not when I was the one who lived.

I had yet to come across another survivor. I'd been walking for ages. Surely it wasn't possible I was the only one to make it out alive, right?

I didn't think I could live with that if it were true. This was my fight, more so than it was theirs. I was supposed to be the one to sacrifice, I was created for that very purpose. Maybe I had failed after all. Maybe my condemnation would be to live in a world so many had fought for, but I hadn't been strong enough to die for.

The orange glow had sunk halfway below the horizon, now nothing more than half of a glowing iris peering through the smoke. It made everything seem all the more eerie. It was like walking through a ghost town. I could feel the death all around me, but still could not seem to find him.

I glanced to my right, where I could faintly make out the outlines of trees past the steel skyscrapers that lined the street. Central Park. I was almost to the center of the battle.

So I turned left towards the bay. Immediately, I saw hundreds of white wings littering the street. This was an Angels graveyard. There were so many. I stumbled back a little in shock, tears budding at my eyes despite how badly I fought against them.

I glanced down to my right, and felt pain stab me through the chest when I saw Suriel's dismembered body littered like trash across the street. A tear ran down my cheek. If Suriel had died, then-

My eyes fell on a pair of curved, swan-like wings, and I felt the breath escape my lungs in a bloodcurdling scream.

The pain seemed to dissipate the moment I saw those wings, and I ran towards her body, stumbling over my ankle and ignoring the stab against my leg, the burning of my wing against the road.

No. Not her. No. Please, for the love of everything, not her-

And when I fell to my knees before her, gingerly lifting the tip of her wing that covered her face, I screamed up at the sky. I screamed until my voice gave out. I screamed until I could taste the blood in my mouth.

She'd given her life because of me once, and she'd done it again. Through everything, she'd loved me and stood beside me. Even when we charged into battle and she looked at me, dead in the eye and told me she was scared. And I'd let her go. I'd let her run into battle and fight. She had been unprepared, petrified, and I'd let her go anyway.

Allison. God, Allison.

"Allison, no, please God no!" I wailed uncontrollably, my raw voice echoing down the empty road as I cupped her greying face, her brilliant blue eyes cast to the side. Every scream I tried to release now was silent. My voice was gone.

Sobs wracked my body as I cried over hers. Over and over again I cried out her name, praying she would wake. I was shaking now, completely shaking, as if the world had begun to crumble beneath me. I could hardly breathe between each of my sobs, and I didn't care. I could never breathe again, and I wouldn't care. They'd stolen my best friend from me. They'd taken her from me. She was gone. God, she was gone.

She didn't ask for this life. She didn't ask to become an Angel, to be killed brutally by Lucifer and to join a war against forces she hadn't even known existed. She was forced into this because she knew me, because she had loved me. She loved me. She loved me enough to die for me.

I cried out her name, as if she'd wake up, running my fingers through her silvery hair. She had braided it back intricately, though many strands seemed to have fought their way free. She would've been so irritated that her hairspray hadn't held up through the Reckoning.

Her hair was matted with black blood from her other wing, which appeared to have been severed right where it left her back. When I looked behind me, I could see it discarded a few feet away.

Sobbing, I stood up, and limped over to the wing. I nearly fell to the ground as I wailed, picking it up from the ground and dragging it back to her body. She did not deserve to die like this, not like this. She deserved to be whole.

I fell to my knees beside her, whimpering as I lifted up her shoulder and gingerly pushed her severed wing beneath it. My lips trembled as I looked at her now- complete once more. She'd been stabbed straight through the heart, but also various other places across her body. There was a chunk of skin missing from her leg, almost like a Demon had bitten it out of her.

She'd been tortured. Absolutely tortured before she had died.

Suriel had probably died trying to save her. When he'd fallen, she had known. I knew that she must've known.

And I hadn't been there. She had probably screamed for help, screamed my name, and I hadn't come.

I hadn't come.

I shook as I leaned down and pressed my trembling lips against her forehead, gingerly using my fingertips to close her eyelids one final time. My best friend. She had screamed for me and I wasn't there for her I wasn't there when she needed me I wasn't there when she was dying I wasn't there I wasn't there I wasn't there-

"All-Allison. I-," my voice shook as I gingerly took her hand in mine, "- I am so sorry. I'm so sorry, God I'm so sorry." I began to sob again, hanging my head between my shoulders.

My mind flew back to when I'd walked into my room at the sorority to her sleeping with a cookie dangling from her lips, to her criticizing me for hiking in the rain, stuffing her face with pasta while Jack laughed beside me. I remembered how she'd hugged me when I'd awoken from when Lucifer had killed me, how she glowed in her Angelic form like she was meant to be an Angel all along.

I remembered how she'd flown across the world with me to save my soul. How she'd stood by me when Grey had pretended to cheat on me, tried to lift my spirits constantly. She'd used Angelic Suggestion on store owners across Paris to get free clothes.

I remembered how she'd joined me in Heaven, how she'd argued with me after Grey had nearly killed me. How she'd been so angry with me because she loved me and didn't want to see me hurt again.

God, she loved me. She had practically dedicated the last two years of her life to me. And where was I?

Where was I?

She was my best friend, and I'd let her down in every way imaginable. I would never be able to tell her how sorry I was. I would never be able to breathe again without knowing that every breath I took was a breath I stole from her.

Shaking, I slowly stood from her body.

Perhaps I was wrong. It felt like I hadn't survived at all.