Chapter 8: For The Girl Without A Name

"Tav," Derek rasped from the ground.

Tavian’s mouth opened. Blood came out instead of a punchline and that was how Derek knew it was bad, because Tavian Voltcrest had never once in his life failed to deliver a line and his silence was louder than the entire arena.

Derek grabbed Tavian’s collar and pulled him closer because closer meant alive and alive meant there was still time and time was the only currency Derek had ever been afraid of running out of.

"TAV. Look at me."

Tavian’s eyes found Derek’s. They were clear. Present. The eyes of a man who understood exactly what had just happened and was doing the math on how many seconds he had left to spend them wisely.

"Get." He coughed. "Them. Out."

"I’m getting YOU out, you stubborn son of a—"

Tavian smiled. Blood on his teeth. Then his eyes went somewhere else and his hand slid off Derek’s wrist and the warmth went with it.

Derek stared at a face that still looked like his best friend and wasn’t. The muscles were the same. But the thing that made Tavian Tavian had left without closing the door behind it.

"No, no, no. You don’t get to die. You’re my guy."

His hand stayed on Tavian’s wrist, waiting for a beat that had already played its last. But letting go of it meant agreeing with the silence, and agreeing meant surrender, and surrender meant his best friend was gone.

Thirty feet behind him, Kai lunged. Full extension. Everything behind the tip. Landon sidestepped, grabbed the shaft, reversed it, and put it through Kai’s chest with his own momentum. The smirk froze. The body followed.

Landon left the spear where it was and ran.

Derek heard his brother before he saw him. The boots. The breathing. The sound of a man running toward the worst news of his life without knowing it was waiting.

Landon hit the sand next to Tavian.

"TAVIAN..." His voice cracked in a way it had never cracked before and would never crack again because the sound that came out of him was the kind of thing you only make once.

"You get the girl. I’ll get Tavian," Derek rasped.

Landon picked up the girl with tears that cut tracks through the blood on his face, landing on her white hair. Derek attempted to pick up Tavian on legs that couldn’t even carry himself. His legs said no.

Both brothers knew it wasn’t going to work. Neither of them said it. Saying it would make it real and real was a country they weren’t ready to immigrate to.

Derek tried again. His legs said no louder. He tried a third time because leaving Tavian on sacred sand meant sacred sand was his grave and Derek refused to let this floor be the last place his best friend ever rested.

His knees hit the sand for the last time and stayed. His body had made a decision his heart would never forgive. Tavian was still in his arms. Still warm. Still going nowhere because Derek couldn’t take him there.

His eyes landed on the girl in his brother’s arms and the decision was made. Something about watching her die was hitting him at a frequency deeper than anything he understood.

"Landon, the silver is in your heart and I can see the lines in your neck. The girl is worse. You have minutes. Maybe less. I need you to stand up and I need you to do it now."

"I don’t care what the smart move is, Derek. I’m not built for the smart move right now. I’m built for this. Right here. Both of you."

"I didn’t say forever. Get her to medical and come back for me." Derek said, voice light.

Landon looked at the girl in his arms, his brother dying on the ground, and his Beta already gone.

"This is an impossible choice," he choked out.

"No. There’s only one choice and she’s it."

Landon’s face did something it had never done in front of his brother. It collapsed. Every wall. Every mask. Every version of Alpha he’d ever performed for a crowd or a council or a mirror. It all came down at once and what was underneath was a man who was about to leave his older brother to die and couldn’t find a single version of himself strong enough to do it.

"Take her. Please," Derek tried again.

Derek Thunderfang didn’t say please. Not like that. Landon heard it and he heard the thing underneath that Derek himself didn’t understand yet. That’s what broke through.

"I’m coming back," Landon stated.

"I know you will," Derek lied. It was the kindest lie he’d ever told. The last gift he had to give was letting his brother believe he was coming back to someone who would still be breathing when he arrived.

He watched Landon go into the tunnel. His brother’s silhouette against the light at the end of the tunnel was the last good thing Derek expected to see and he memorized it the way you memorize something you’re about to lose. Landon was moving towards daylight. Moving towards life. Moving towards a future that had room in it for at least one Thunderfang and the girl whose pulse was the only reason that Thunderfang was still walking.

Derek pressed his hand against the sword hole. Felt his heartbeat in the wound.

BOOM.

Another explosion. Too close. Stone cracked against his forehead. His ears went from hearing to ringing to something beyond ringing.

The tunnel was gone.

Where his brother had been walking a few seconds ago towards a life that still had mornings in it, there was rubble. The heat coming off it was strong enough that Derek could feel it on his face still.

"LANDON!"

He tried to crawl. His arms agreed to a compromise that involved dragging his body across sand. He made it two feet before the blood loss caught up and he fell flat.

"LANDON! ANSWER ME!"

Nothing came back. He listened until his ears ached. No voice. No movement. No sound from the other side of the wall that used to be a corridor. Just heat and dust and the kind of silence that answers every question you’re afraid to ask.

"No, no, no. I’m sorry. I picked wrong," Derek rasped, tears coming out of his eyes.

He had told Landon to go down that tunnel. His brother had trusted him because he had always trusted him without question. That was the deal. Derek was the smart one who always steered his brother towards the correct path. And the one time being the smart one was supposed to save his brother’s life, he picked wrong.

He’d told Landon to go. Landon went. That was the whole story. The beginning, the middle, and the end, all in one sentence he couldn’t take back.

The sand held him the way it had held everything today. The girl with no name. The Beta who never stopped talking. The brother who never stopped trusting. The sand held all of it, and it didn’t discriminate, and it didn’t care, and Derek Thunderfang became part of the same ground that ten thousand wolves had been cheering at hours ago and it didn’t matter.

He thought about the determination on Landon’s face when he said I’m coming back. He thought about how this morning felt like a lifetime ago, like it belonged to someone else.

If he could go back in time, he’d tell Tavian he was his guy before the blood. He’d tell Landon it was always supposed to be him because his brother needed to hear it. And he’d make damn sure to protect 7709.

If I could start today over, I wouldn’t waste it.