A Witch's Way

36) Stuck In Hell

"I-I tried to save you, bu-but you...you...died."

"Are you saying...that this is the real world?"

"Layla?"

"Yes...?"

"Are you real?"

"As far as I can tell..."

He reached out a trembling hand and brushed it against my cheek. I captured his hand and held it between my own. The familiar feeling brought a smile to my face.

Matt stared at our hands then back to my face. Hope filled his features and he let out a breathless laugh.

"You're really here. You're alive."

I'm alive? I didn't die? Oh God I didn't die!  

Everything was going to be alright.

And then Matt scrambled towards me and wrapped his arms around me. He lifted me onto his lap and cradled my head. I gripped at his chest and we were both crying together. Happy, joyous tears, knowing the Hell we had been through for the past months was over. Matt murmured my name over and over again in to my hair as he kissed my head.  

He pulled his head back to look at me in the face and his smile took my breath away. He crashed his lips to mine.  

We kissed desperately and grasped at each other like wild animals. I didn't care that I was in the middle of the Deathstag, I didn't care that every surface of my body was screaming at me in pain, I didn't even care that I was surrounded in the ashes of cremated people. None of that mattered. All that mattered was the feeling of Matt's mouth on mine, of his hands trapping my body to his, of the feeling of love filling every pore on my body. I was in the arms of a God. Of the arms of the one person who I loved more then everything I had.

We broke apart and I rested my head on his chest, breathing heavily.

"I love you Layla."

"I love you Matt."

He kissed my forehead and wrapped his arms around me, surrounding me in warmth and protection.

I furrowed my eyebrows. A thought had occurred to me.

"Matt?"

"Hmm?"

"Where's Grace?"

I felt Matt freeze and become stone around me. I pulled back to look at his face. A wash of pain flashed across his features and his green eyes held so much sadness.  

I suddenly didn't want to know.

"Matt, where is she?" I choked.

He turned his head ever so slightly to the left and I followed his gaze.

There, lying not two metres away, lay Grace. 

She way lying on her back with both arms at her sides. Her red hair was spilled under her head and across the floor. One knee was bent over the other slightly. 

I didn't want to, but I knew I had to look at her face and I tore my gaze upwards. 

Her eyes were closed, her eyelashes casting shadows on her cheekbones. Her lips were still and emotionless. If it weren't for the unnatural pale colour of her skin I would have thought she was sleeping. Only I knew she wasn't.

"Grace?" I whispered.

I tore myself from Matt to scramble to her unmoving side.

I shook her shoulder, denying what I knew. She wasn't dead. She wasn't. You can't be.