A Fiery Dalliance

XXXVIII

Joe could not save himself. He needed help. He needed someone to take his shield from him. He could not fight that dragons in his nightmares alone. He had been fighting for so long and not even realising, and he was exhausted.

The sounds of the sobs from the men in the cell with him broke through a barrier in Joe's brain, and a crippling fear spread across his body that he was certain these men were feeling, too.

Joe did not want to die. He did not want to die with this having been his life. He couldn't fight the dragons alone, but he did not want to let them win.

Why was he letting them win?

How had he been letting them win for so long?

Joe had braced himself against the bars for stability but losing the feeling in his legs did nothing to help him, and he sank down onto the disgusting floor.

Joe had saved his brother, but he had done this to punish himself. Slowly, he turned his head slightly towards the sobs behind him. Being once again confronted with their expressions of utter terror humbled him in a brutal way. Nobody deserved this.

Did that include him?

No. You killed your mother.

"I didn't mean to," Joe whispered. "I was a baby."

You hurt everyone.

"But they never left me." He saw his brother's face clearly in his mind, the look of shock on his face right before Joe had knocked him unconscious. Ed would have died to save Joe.

And Perrie. Joe's demons had thrown everything at her. And yet she had still stolen away to London just to make certain that he was safe. He loved her. He loved her for that, and for so many more reasons. Did she love him, too?

"Wouldn't they leave me if I hurt them?"

Your deafness ruined your father.

"I made a mistake," Joe continued to utter softly into the void. "Parents ... parents are supposed to forgive mistakes." He felt a phantom hand on his shoulder, a reassuring hand, and his mind went directly to thinking of Adam Beresford.

Your father hates you.

"Fathers shouldn't hate." Adam's hand was still there, squeezing his shoulder, and telling Joe that what he had said was right.

You don't deserve Perrie.

Joe's breaths were shaky and uneven as he tried to muster whatever strength he had. "I shall try to." The hand on his shoulder grew hotter then, and it felt like the flames of a fire drawing closer. But it didn't burn. It warmed. And Joe wondered if it could heal.

He shook, almost uncontrollably as the gravity of his situation consumed him. He wanted to fight. He wanted to be free of this. He wanted to be with the people he loved when the dragons returned, as they inevitably would.

But they couldn't help Joe if he was already dead.

***

Perrie watched as her father barked an order for a carriage in a tone that she had never before heard in her life. Adam shouted aggressively, desperately, and Perrie could see the panic on her usually calm and all-knowing father.

The fact that he was afraid made her terrified. Perrie usually looked to her father for a safe harbour, a strong pillar on which to lean, and she could see that not even Adam knew if anything could be done.

"Papa, please let me come with you!" Perrie begged, already knowing the answer.

"I will be going alone," Adam said shortly. "You will wait here, and I will send word if there is any news."