Cassia's point of view:
Hours of digging through the rubble yielded little hope.
Every limb I found hanging out of the wreckage that filled me with false hope I swear has taken ten years off of my life.
I would pull said limb out of the debris, only to find a dead policeman of Will's or, much harder, a prison guard that served under Adam.
I want to find those I've lost so badly, but at the same time, I don't envy Genevieve, who's been looking for the rest of her family with a broken heart and dried tears. The first person she found after Susan and Kyle was her sister, Victoria.
Victoria didn't make it.
If we somehow manage by the grace of God to find Evelyn and Caleb alive, they'll have to hear that they've lost a child.
Two children if Jacqueline should suffer the same fate.
With each brick I move, my heart gets heavier with the dread of whose dead body I'll find next, praying that it's not anyone I knew.
Unfortunately, as I dig into a particularly sharp pile of wood and glass, I see a hand buried underneath it.
A hand I recognize.
"Oh please no," I mutter, scrambling to move the wreckage so I could get to it.
I reach down and grab the wrist, the skin unmistakably cold as my heart plummets.
I pull upwards and grab the person's hand with both of mine now, giving one great tug as the body follows to emerge out of the ruin.
I stumble backwards with the body in my arms, landing on a pile of bricks.
The body was Cade's.
"No no no," I sputter, tears leaking out and falling on his still face. "Not you, too."
My head falls to rest against his forehead, wishing he would open his eyes.
I feel every word that was left unsaid between us like a painful knife, wishing the stab of each syllable would take me now as well.
With hope that I don't have, my right hand travels up to his neck wherein I press two of my fingers under his jaw to look for what I know I won't find:
A pulse.
"Please," I practically beg him, shifting my hand around in every direction to find his heartbeat. "Please."
Kyle, Victoria, Cade, and so many others. I'll never be able to move on from this place now, not after all of this. In the future, we could clean all of this up, even rebuild. But no matter, this ground will always be haunted by them. This will always be where they died.
I move my hand one last time and press my fingers against his neck as deep as they'll go, wanting the one thing I'll never get.
Or so I thought.
"What the hell..." I mutter, pressing down again to be sure I didn't just fool myself.
But I'm no fool, and Cade has a pulse.
It's the faintest, most practically unattainable thing I've ever felt that if I wasn't a doctor, I would've sworn was coming from me, not him.
"Oh my God," I mumble inaudibly, moving my hands to the center of his chest and closing my eyes.
A flood of healing comes out of me, a built up reserve of power that I didn't know I still had. More tears leak from my eyes, a mixture of emotions accompanying them:
Fear, uncertainty, joy.
"Come on, you bastard. You don't get to end it like this. You can't," I order him, willing Cade to open his eyes.
My vision is filled with an electric blue, nearly neon in its color. Power radiates from every crevice of my hands, so brilliant that even I have trouble focusing.
"Please Cade," I urge him, wanting him to give me some kind of inclination that he's more than just half-alive.
His pulse begins to gather in strength.
Beginning to fill up with foolish hope, I keep the healing process going, vowing not to cease until he opens his eyes.
Cade's chest begins to rise with the sensation of breathing, his mouth falling open to take in air.
He breathes deeply once, only for his eyes to fly open as he rolls over and starts to cough violently.
I stop the healing, stunned.
He continues to cough, pausing only to breathe, and then to keep coughing.
This goes on for some time before his coughs become minor grunts, breathing now like someone who's just held their breath for too long rather than someone who's been suffocated.
I gingerly outstretch a hand to rest on his shoulder, trying to bring him back down to Earth, trying to remind him that he's alive.
He turns to me immediately, his face a dusty mess and his black hair sticking up at all angles. And yet, his eyes shine with the happiness of a child.
"Cass!" He shouts, launching himself at me to wrap me in a bear-hug, which is surprisingly strong considering the fact that he was nearly dead just moments ago.
"Cade," I exhale, feeling the void in my chest from all the despair I've witnessed today begin to close ever so slightly.
I saved one.
Cade's going to live.
"I'm so sorry, all of this is my fault. If only I had just-"
"Shut up, I don't want to hear another word like that come out of your mouth. There's been enough agony to go around for everyone after today. Just...just let me be happy. You're alive," I cut him off looping my arms around his neck to bring him closer.
He complies, not saying anything else.
It must've been an odd sight to behold, two people who look like they've endured the beating of a lifetime embracing on a pile of bricks surrounded by carnage.
But yet here we are, both alive against every odd.
I didn't really have the right to be happy, not when Genevieve found her sister dead and certainly not when Susan lost the one she loved. I don't deserve happiness under these circumstances.
I do, however, think I am entitled to a small amount of relief, which is exactly what I feel at the moment.
"I'm never letting you go again," I tell him.