The Survivors: Body & Blood (book 3)

Lost

Her body was laid out on a palette of coarse material on the ground, unceremoniously, in this dugout space barely large enough for the four of us — for the three of us and the body — to be in.

I sank to my knees, then dropped my forehead to the ground. I was overcome with a wave of grief and a solid, unfaltering pain so heavy that I couldn't lift myself. That I couldn't stand anymore.

That I couldn't exist anymore.

My breathing grew rough and uneven, and my chest heaved as my entire body began to shut down at the site of this: Lizzie, asleep. Lizzie, frozen. Lizzie, dead.

She looked so small! And so frail. How much did she weigh anyway—100 pounds? How had I never noticed this, how much smaller, how much more fragile she was than I? And had she always looked so old? Her skin was dull, gray, and so utterly dead. Her face looked papery and withered, with lines sinking deeply into her face that I had-n't noticed before. The bright pink splotches that usually covered her face were gone, and her freckles seemed like flecks of graphite stabbed into her skin.

She didn't look like Lizzie. She wasn't Lizzie. She wasn't the person I had known and loved, the woman who raised me, the only friend and confidante I'd had in the world.

She couldn't be Lizzie. Because Lizzie couldn't be dead. Because I couldn't have lost her and still survived. Because Lizzie was out there somewhere, alive and pink and breathing, and I would just have to find her. Find her and make things right.

She couldn't be Lizzie because the last words I ever spoke to Lizzie were spiteful. The last words she'd spoken to me were cruel. We had cared so deeply for each other for 145 years, and then, just weeks ago, we had one cross conversation, and now THAT was what I could hold onto?

No. It couldn't be. It was impossible.

This . . .

Wasn't . . .

Lizzie.

"It's not Lizzie. Impossible. It can't be," I said over and over again, though I didn't know I was saying it until both the Winter boys dropped to the ground next to me.

"Not . . . Can't . . . Isn't . . ." I trailed. I cried. Cried. Tearless and cool and lifeless, but I cried. I sobbed. I broke in half.

Everett pulled my face to his chest and cradled my body against his. "Shhh . . ." he cooed. "Just breathe, princess. Just breathe."

Mark hung back for a second and then tentatively laid one hand on my head, stroking my hair. "It is her, little one. It is. I'm so sorry."

This was the way they handled me, of course. Everett like I was broken and shouldn't be pulled from my fantasy worlds. Mark like I could handle it and needed to be brought to reality.

"Can't . . ." I whispered.

Then it got worse. The silent sobs escalated until I truly couldn't breathe, until my entire body was stricken and then convulsing. Everett held tighter, and Mark stayed close. Breaking. They were watching me

Break.

Shatter.

Come undone.

I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG WE STAYED THERE. I DIDN'T REMEMBER KNOW WHAT day or time it was when we came in, or when we came out. Time had stopped at the entrance of this cave, and I had a feeling it wouldn't start again once I left.

I had just stared at her for so long. I had to, didn't I? To be sure? There wasn't a mark on her except for unsettling through-and-through wounds on her hands that made it look as if she had been crucified. But as disturbing as the wounds were, they weren't lethal, and they were the only evidence of trauma. I checked. Double checked. Triple checked. And so I let my mind think again it wasn't real. I waited, eyes fixed on her, for a tiny muscle movement, a subtle breath. Hours into it, I began touching her more, and her skin felt even more dead than it looked. It was cold and clammy and heavy, like clay on a spinning wheel. She wasn't real! She couldn't be . . .real.