DARKNESS

DARKNESS | Chapter 37

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

She's gone.

Harper, the woman he was in love with. Strong and rebellious, unafraid to defend herself and those she loved, determined to stand up for what was right.

A shining light among a world of chaos and destruction; a beacon of hope. His Harper.

Gone? Just like that? Kale couldn't comprehend it.

The sounds of metal-on-metal still reverberate around him, loud and fierce, as Brayden brings the last of the defiant Shadow soldiers to their knees. The others just lower their swords, one by one, as news of Ashleigh's death spreads contagiously across the battlefield.

This was his fight. It always had been. They had nothing to gain from continuing it.

She looks so serene, he thought, her dark chestnut hair spread like a halo around her head. Her features relaxed, eyes closed; finally at peace. Finally able to rest, after years of suffering, of hiding, of fear.

Finally free.

And he hated himself from wanting to take that away from her, but he couldn't help himself. The pain was too much to bear. He loves her. He needs her.

How are you meant to go on when someone you love is lost? When that someone is the only person that was able to bring happiness into your world, put a smile on your face and challenge you in the best ways possible- even if you didn't know it?

How can she be gone?

Sadness seizes Kale's heart in a vice-like grip- one that may not ever disappear or lessen.

Swords are lowered to the ground around him, heads bowing in respect for Harper. Although she'd never believed it when she was alive, she was unique. She was something special.

She was the catalyst to change, a good change.

She was what this world needed.

Gone.

Her limp, lifeless body spread out in front of him.

Grief consumes him.

He lets go of the shirt on her wound, now, fully soaked through with her blood. A wound his own father had inflicted. The man who had given him life, yet taken it from the woman Kale loved.

He frames her face in his palm, fragile and lifeless. Her skin is still warm, and for a moment he thinks that maybe, just maybe, she was alive. She still felt like Harper, looked just like she did when she was sleeping.

Except this time, it was different. And deep down, he knew that.

He takes her face in both his arms and presses his forehead to her own, almost willing her to come back to him. Could she not tell how much he loved her, how much he needed her?

How could she leave him?

And then he loses it. He feels himself breaking apart, the weight of the situation knocking the breath out of him. Tear after year falls from his eyes onto her soft skin, sliding down her check to mix with the blood on his hands.

Her blood.

She was gone.

"Kale." The voice is soft. It's Brayden. He doesn't care, ignoring him. Letting his grief overtake him, letting his guard come crashing down without a care for the consequences.

He feels Brayden crouch down beside him, takes Harper's hand in one of his own. Sadness rolls off of him in waves.

"Kale," he says, softly, reasonably, "she's gone."

I'd already established that fact over and over in my mind, yet for some reason hearing it aloud makes it real. It's like a stake being driven into my chest, the fact of the situation hitting me with overwhelming force.

She was never coming back.

Kale presses a soft kiss to her forehead. And slowly, he sits back up beside his friend. Brayden claps him on the back, putting an arm around Kale's shoulders.

Trying to keep himself together as best he can, Kale can tell.

Looking down at Harper, he feels all the life drain out of him, even if he's still alive. He didn't want to talk to anybody, see anybody. He just wanted to be alone. He needed space to grieve. He needed to pretend he was still with her, that everything was as perfect as he ever hoped it could be.

She'd irritated him at first, so stubborn and strong-headed. But she'd grown on him, and somehow Harper had come to mean more to him than anyone else ever had.

Kale looks up, meeting his brother's eyes across her body. Blake looks pained, disbelieving. He, too, had grown close with Harper recently. She'd pushed him to be better, to stand up for a cause. She'd given him a reason.

It was an honour, for Blake, to have been able to have fought beside her in her last ever fight. To stand up to his father, once and for all. And to end up, as much as that also strangely broke him. Ashleigh had always had a tight hold over his eldest son, shaping him into the man he wanted him to be. Ashleigh had dictated everything he'd ever done, raised him to think a certain, harsh way.

Harper had helped him break free of that. He would be forever grateful. And he'd never forget it.

He couldn't even imagine how his little brother was feeling right now, if he was feeling like this.

Kale wipes some tears away roughly with the back of his hand. He can't take his eyes off of her. From the minute she'd entered their world, she'd started making everything better.

And that's what Harper had never realised. She had tossed their entire, messed up world upside-down. She'd challenged their norms, she'd protested when they were too stubborn to argue, she'd won their hearts, one by one, and she hadn't even had to try.

She'd diverted them from their own path of self-destruction. She'd done so much more than anyone had every anticipated and he just wished he could've shown her that. Shown her what she looked like through his eyes, through the eyes of everyone around her.

Her parents would've been so proud.

She had saved them all.

THE END.