Chapter 278: I did... Nothing

"Why w...would you t...think that?" Sylas asked quietly, his voice breaking apart.

Theo stared at him, her lips trembling as she tried to find an answer that wouldn’t destroy what little remained of her composure. She couldn’t, "I just..." She swallowed, but the lump in her throat refused to go down. "I just am."

"Venom."

"Don’t call me that."

Both men went still, and Theo immediately regretted saying it. She saw the way Zeke’s expression changed, how something wounded flashed across his face before he quickly buried it.

She wanted to take it back. She wanted to reach for him, pull him against her, and apologise for every hurtful thing she might say tonight, but she couldn’t.

Because if she knew that if she touched him, if she allowed herself to feel the warmth of his skin against hers, she might forget why she was standing here in the first place...and she couldn’t afford to forget.

Not again.

"You don’t understand," She whispered instead.

"Then help us understand." Sylas’s voice cracked on the last word, so faintly that another person might have missed it. "Please."

"No." Theo shook her head.

"Why?"

"Because you won’t understand!"

"Then make us understand!" Zeke’s voice came out louder than he intended. He immediately flinched at his own volume, watching Theo recoil as though he had struck her.

"Fuck." He dragged a hand through his wet hair. "I’m sorry, Hellcat. I didn’t mean to shout."

She shook her head again, "Stop apologising."

"Then stop looking at us like we’re going to hurt you." The words slipped out before he could stop them, and once again, Zeke looked horrified with himself.

Sylas closed his eyes briefly.

And Theo...she broke a little more.

Because that was precisely the problem.

They weren’t going to hurt her. They would never hurt her.

They would stand in front of the entire world and let it tear them apart before allowing a single person to lay a finger on her. They would love her through anything, and they would forgive her for things she couldn’t even bring herself to say aloud.

And she didn’t know how to survive that kind of love anymore.

"You’re supposed to hate me," She whispered again.

Neither man spoke.

Theo’s eyes darted between them, desperate now, as though she needed them to understand something that had been eating her alive for so long.

"You’re supposed to look at me and hate me. You should be angry with me. You should be disgusted with me."

"Hellcat, what the hell are you talking about?" Zeke asked, his face crumpling.

"I should never have come back!" The words tore out of her, and she quickly clapped both hands over her mouth, but it was too late.

Both men stared at her, and now the forest felt too small to contain the horror in their expressions.

When Theo saw that, she started to back away, "No. No, I didn’t mean—"

"Come here," Zeke whispered.

She shook her head violently, "Don’t. Please, don’t!"

"Hellcat—"

"Don’t call me that!"

Zeke stopped moving, watching as her chest rose and fell rapidly. She pressed a trembling hand against it, trying to hold herself together, but her body had already begun to betray her.

"I don’t deserve that name," She choked out. "I don’t deserve anything you give me. I don’t deserve your love. I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I don’t deserve to stand here and look at you both as though I have any right to—" She couldn’t finish because a sob escaped her, and she immediately turned away, covering her face with both hands, "Oh, God." The sound was barely audible beneath the rain, "Oh, God, I can’t do this."

Sylas took one step toward her.

"Don’t come near me!"

He stopped.

Theo shook her head, crying harder now, "Please. Just... please."

Neither man moved again, because they were torn to see her like this. They had fought demons. They had fought armies. They had crawled through death itself, endured pain that would have destroyed any other wolf, and returned to a world that had already buried them.

But there was no enemy in front of them now, just the woman they loved, drowning in something they couldn’t reach. And they had no idea how to save her.

Theo slowly lowered her hands to her sides. Her face was a mess of tears and rain, her red hair plastered to her cheeks. She looked from one man to the other, and the sight of them standing there, alive and breathing, nearly brought her to her knees.

"I promised myself something," She began.

Neither of them interrupted. They didn’t dare to now that she’d started talking.

"When he killed you, I promised myself that I would make him pay." Her voice was trembling, but there was something else beneath the tears now. Something very bitter.

"I promised that I would tear him apart. That I would destroy everything he loved. That I would make him suffer the way he made me suffer. I was going to kill him, Sylas. I was going to kill him with my own hands." Her lips twisted, and she looked down at her muddy feet, "I was so angry. I hated him so much that I couldn’t even breathe without thinking about what I would do to him when I finally got the chance."

A tear slipped down her cheek.

"And then I did nothing."

"What?" Zeke frowned.

"I did nothing!" Her voice echoed through the trees, "I trained. I trained everyday until my body couldn’t move anymore. Then I got up and trained again. I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw you both dying. I saw him killing you. I saw—" Her voice suddenly disappeared, and she squeezed her eyes shut, "No. No, no, no..."

Sylas’s face had gone deathly still.

He knew what she was about to say.

He didn’t know how he knew, but something inside him had begun to twist with a terrible, sickening certainty.

Theo pressed her hands against her stomach, as though she were trying to keep herself from falling apart, "I saw you looking at me." She continued through the pain, "I kept seeing your faces. I kept hearing your voices. I kept thinking that if I’d been if I’d been stronger, if I’d done something differently, maybe you would still be alive."

Then, she laughed.

It was a horrible, broken sound.

"And do you know what I did about it?"

No one answered again.

"Nothing."

She looked up at them, and for the first time, there was something in her eyes that went beyond grief.

There was shame.

"I couldn’t even get out of bed some days. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything except remember you. And I hated myself for it because I was supposed to be getting stronger. I was supposed to be preparing to kill him. I was supposed to be doing something useful... but I was so tired, " The last three words came out as a whisper, "I was so fucking tired."

Zeke’s expression crumpled, "Oh, Hellcat..."

"I didn’t want to feel anything anymore."

The words fell between them. It was quiet, ugly and very much irreversible.