"No," I breathe, despair falling on me like an anvil.
"No, no, don't go! Stay with me, stay with me - " her name, her name, I've only just found out her name - "Lee - Lee, Lee, stay with me, come back!"
But she doesn't move.
My mind races.
Not an option: watching her die.
Options: taking her to the palace myself. Or - calling in medics. Waiting for help to arrive.
"Too slow," I say aloud, picking her up. She - Lee - shudders into my arms, her broken hand resting weakly in her lap.
Jackson must have followed me with backup. He is downstairs, a fleet of wolves with him, speaking with the girl. The boy stands behind her, his hand on her shoulder.
"Is that her?" Jackson asks as I rush towards the door. "Is - is she . . ."
"Lee!" the girl screams. The boy grips her shoulder.
I tighten my hold on Lee.
"Upstairs," I reply tightly, already half out the door. "He's probably still alive."
"Yes, sir."
And then, even as the girl cries out, I take Lee to the Palace.
I had thought the worst thing was her leaving me. I had thought that the fear drowning her eyes, that hopeless wanting, was the cruelest trick the universe could play on me.
But now, holding her, feeling the strength seep out of her body - I was wrong. This is the worst. This is the worst things that has ever - that could ever happen.
"You can hate me," I whisper into the air, "you can hate me, and you can leave, just, please, live."
Everything blurs. The forest flies by, and then I'm screaming at a medic in the cold white of the Med wing, desperate, angry, hopeless.
"Sir - Sir, you have to put her down."
My hands tighten on her. This happened to her the last time I let her go.
"Of course," I finally grit out, setting her out on the gurney.
The doctors swarm.
Her leg, her hand, her head.
They touch her and it hurts, it hurts, everything hurts.
They seem to be so rough and callous to her, jolting her body and ignoring the weak painful protests she makes. They aren't - how do they not understand that she is the most valuable thing on the planet? One of the doctors jostles her side with the broken leg. My vision burns silver and red, and if it weren't for Jackson - when did he arrive? - holding me back, I would do myself the favor of severing the doctor's head from his shoulders.
"Orion!" Jackson shouts at me, pushing against my shoulders, "You need to calm down!"
I snap at him, all the frustration and pain broiling to the top. But he's right. He's right.
So all I can do is watch as they pick her apart.
-
She needs surgery. She needs a lot of things, but that's the first. It will save her hand. I saw her hand, before, so bloody and broken. There is nothing I can do.
Eventually, the doctors have patched her up enough that they leave her alone. They're preparing for the surgery, I think. I stand over her still body.
Her leg and hand have been wrapped up with bandages. Her cheek is bruising into a deep budding of green and purple. My fingers twitch; I don't touch her.
"Only one of the doctors knows," Jackson tells me, standing in the corner of the room. He eyes me warily. "She's going to be one of Lee's surgeons."
I don't look away from Lee. Something awful is crushing inside of my chest.
"I can't."
My whisper dies in the air. I can't - what? Too many things. I can't leave her. I can't handle this. I can't watch her die.
I can't let her go.
"Orion, I know you don't want to leave her alone, but you can't be there. Do you really want the surgeons working on her to be scared out of their minds?"
I shake my head. Lee doesn't move.
When they do take her away, I don't move a muscle. I wait for ten seconds in the hospital room, the smell of her blood and scent slipping away. I take a breath.
The boy is her brother. He tells me so when I find him, waiting, in front of the cell where the bastard is being held.
"Your Highness," he says, dipping his head in a bow, "I'm Jonah." He doesn't look like Lee, at all, nothing in his face or eyes. Jonah ducks his head away, looking back towards the man in the cell, his newly applied bandages covering most of his face.
The man looks like he's in pain. I feel a rush of savage satisfaction. That is no more than he deserves.
"He's our father, Jonathan Collins," Jonah continues, his voice less sure. Just looking at his father, Jonah seems to be swallowing a rush of nausea.
Dad is going to kill me.
What happened to these people?
"The upper beta?" I ask, surprised to recognize the name. Surprised and enraged.
Jonah nods, and then the man in the cell speaks.
"Ashlee?" he calls, his voice almost tinged in confusion. It's all muffled with bandages and blood.
Ashlee? Lee's full name? My body stiffens. Goddess, how I want to rip him apart.
"What will happen to him?" Jonah whispers.
The man speaks again, this time with more assurety.
"Ashlee."
My teeth grind together.
"I think," I respond distantly, trying to keep the rage from seeping into my voice, "he's going to die."
Jonah nods, unsurprised.
I consider opening the door and doing it myself. It would be such a release, to destroy the man that did this to her. Finally, the proper canvas for all of my rage and pain.
But then I think of Lee. Does she - has she ever loved this man? My fists tighten. I will not kill him; not until she asks me to.
The man in the cell seems to smile.
Goddess, I hope she asks me to.
I turn and walk away.
They're cutting into her, now, though I can't feel it. My heart begins to pound if I think of it too much. My fingertips itch to find her, to send the doctors and the whole world away so that we can finally be alone. There's this hole, gnawing in the center of my chest, that opened up when Lee first left me, and it seems to throb with every heartbeat.
She finds me in Lee's hospital room, sitting stiffly on one of the two chairs up against the wall.
Her crutches announce her before she gets too close. I'm unsurprised when she opens the door. I'm more surprised, however, when she walks towards me and sits down.
"My name is Lucy," she says.
I turn and look at her. She looks almost like Lee, but brighter. With her darker hair and emerald eyes, Lucy is the paint behind the stained glass of Lee. Lee, all water-colored and beautiful.
"I'm Orion," I say, trying not to let my panic show.
She shifts her crutches forward.
"Did you do that, to Dad?" she asks. "Did you hurt him?"
I consider the best way to answer her. Lying is probably not the way to go.
"Yes."
I watch her closely, but she's looking straight forward at the wall.
"Thanks," she says. For some reason, this response doesn't really surprise me.
"Any time."
We're silent for a moment.
"Does she like you?" Lucy asks.
This does surprise me.
"Uhm," I answer, "I don't think so."
Lucy considers this.
"You're the Prince, right?"
"Yes."
"I think you can win her over."
What do I do with that? I end up laughing a small, breathy laugh that dies in the air. We're both too afraid.
"She's my older sister," Lucy continues. She says the words like she's memorized them, like some people memorize the periodical table to keep a hold on the elements. "She's 20. Her full name is Ashlee but no one calls her that but Dad. Her favorite weather is rain."
The hole in my chest stretches painfully at the edge. I am desperate to know her.
But even if she lives, I doubt I'll get the chance. Even if she stays, now, wouldn't it just be out of obligation? It seems impossible. I remember her voice, just last night, her breath warm against my back, everything I've ever wanted to hear.
I'm here. I hate running away.
I can't breathe.
"You don't talk much, do you?"
"I guess - no."
"That's okay. Lee doesn't talk a lot, either. Do you want me to be quiet?"
I shake my head. For a second, she's quiet anyway. Then, Lucy takes a breath.
"Is she going to be okay? Is her leg - "
She cuts off, looking at her own two legs, twisted from disuse.
My brow furrows. For the first time, I think about how Lee has been my mate - if I can claim even that - for only a few months. I do not know her. Lucy has known her her entire life.
I can only lose the barest ghost of a girl, but she can lose all of her.
"Hey," I say. She looks over to me. "I'm going to do everything I can to help her. To help all of you."
Her lip trembles. "Yeah, okay," she says, in a voice almost too quiet to hear.
For a moment, she just sits there, playing with her fingernails anxiously.
"Where are we gonna stay?"
"Here in the Palace, if you want."
"In the Palace?" she asks, her eyes dazzled.
How in the world did this tiny, skeletal girl survive with the monster in the dungeon? How did any of them?
"He's really your father? Beta Collins?"
Lucy nods, tired.
"Mom's being a little crazy," she says, her voice distant. "But you didn't hurt her. Thank you, for that. I don't really think it's her fault. . ."
She trails off.
"Can you tell me," I breathe, "what happened?"
Like I flipped a switch, Lucy's eyes begin swimming with tears.
"There are rules," she says, her voice thick with remembered panic. "Dad - Dad didn't like it when Lee didn't come home. He woke us all up when he couldn't find her and we just - waited. I didn't know, where Lee was, I just. I thought she was hurt or something but then."
Lucy cuts herself off. Then, softer, she finishes, "There are rules."
I had begged Lee to stay last night. She had wanted to go - she had been leaving. But I stopped her, I had thought that I couldn't stand it if she left, I had thought I needed her to be with me -
Guilt presses into my skin, so saturated that it almost tastes like nausea.
Eventually, Lucy falls asleep, slumping forward into my shoulder. The empty hospital bed is too white and bare.
And together we wait to see those eyes again, pale and elusive as the foam on the ocean.