The Price {Completed}

Chapter Thirty-Five

"I have to tell you something, but you're going to hate me," she whispered. "Promise you won't hate me?"

"What is it?"

She coughed, going into a fit that sent her into spasms. Blood splattered onto her chin in ruby droplets, and I tried to keep her steady as the spasms rippled through her body. When she finally calmed down, her breath was even more ragged and wet. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she gripped her uniform with shaking hands.

"I thought he should be serving in glory with the other young men of the city." Her voice was so light, I had to lean in. "He held a title, but I knew he wasn't like the other nobles. I knew he had some good in him, and I thought I'd help him along. He needed to be fighting alongside his brothers against our oppressors, but he wouldn't leave you if I didn't do something."

My face buzzed and her green eyes swam before me. "They aren't his brothers," I whispered. "They forced him to fight. That's not something a brother would do."

"I thought it was," she wheezed. "I thought they were holding him accountable to being moral."

"What's moral in forcing young men to fight for a cause they don't believe in?" I hissed.

"The King's Army would have done it if we hadn't."

"I don't care."

"I thought he should help us, that he needed someone to take him away from you. He wouldn't be doing any good attached to your skirts."

The lump in my throat strangled my words, and bitter tears splashed down from my chin onto her cheeks. "How could you, Rachel? We were kind to you. I told you where we lived, and we shared our food. We were doing no harm, and yet you reported Ferdinand? You were the reason he was taken away from me? The reason he could be dead this very minute?"

"I'm so sorry. It wasn't what I thought it would be. It wasn't what I thought." She gasped on her sobs, trying to repeat her words.

A rush of heat ran through my face, numbing it. Irrational anger boiled in my stomach. I shoved her head from my lap and surged to my feet. She devolved into a fit of coughing, but I didn't care. She'd betrayed Ferdinand. Betrayed me by ripping him away.

"How could you?" I snarled, tears blinding me as the anger crashed inside me. "How you could you bloody dare to do this to us?"

Rachel couldn't answer. She just kept coughing.

I took a step back, and then another. I kept walking until I was back in my doorway, huddled against the wood, and watching Rachel as she struggled to breathe on the cold street.

I didn't sleep that night. The moon sunk and the sun began to take its place. The cold was bitter and deadly, seeping my energy, but still I gazed on at the white figure laying before me. Her rattling breathing was the only sound, and it echoed off the walls. She didn't try to move, or even to talk to me anymore. She only coughed and coughed.

I had to leave soon. The inhabitants of the house would soon be stirring, getting ready for the day, and I needed to be far away from their doorway by then. I stood, bundling my coat closer to my body, and stepped back onto the street.

I tried to skirt around Rachel, wanting to just walk off and leave her for the junk man to find on his rounds of the city, but as I came closer to her body, I heard the hitched sound of her crying.

My feet stilled. I glanced to my right, where she stared at the sky with glazed green eyes.

"Nadia?" she whispered. "Are you there?"

I fought against myself. One side wanted to leave then, ignore her and let her rot. The other knew she was just a young girl, looking for somewhere to belong. Just like me.

"I'm here."

"Nadia," Rachel said, her voice whittling down.

I crouched, my skirt brushing her forehead. "Yes?"

"I'm so, so sorry. Forgive me."

I bit my lip, watching as her eyes fluttered shut and her hands went slack. I could have waited until she slipped away, just not answered her plea. But I couldn't let her face the darkness without some comfort. Even if it broke my heart to forgive her for taking Ferdinand away.

"You're forgiven, Rachel," I whispered, trailing a hand across her cheek and feeling the heat seeping away from it. "Sleep now."

Her chest stilled, and the labored breathing was put to rest.

I didn't stay for any longer. I got to my feet and walked as fast as I could away from her cooling body, trying desperately not to think about the sad girl from my ballet corps any longer.