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“I love you.”
*
“It will be okay.”
*
“I promise.”
*
“I won’t let them take you.”
*
Words whispered in the dead of night, vows of silence and of trust and of love. Two girls, alone in the world. Alone, even together.
She keeps every word.
*
She, however, doesn’t.
*
“What are you doing?”
A tired sigh.
“You know what I’m doing.”
…a stuttered breath, a tight throat. Disbelief.
“You-you betrayed us?”
No answer. A look. Contempt where there was once only acceptance.
“How could--I trusted you. I. Trusted. You.”
She breaks. She runs.
*
“He had to be stopped.”
She grit her teeth.
“No. You just had to succeed.”
*
Dip. His blood on the ground.
Her knees with it.
Her hand on his.
He is as cold as his eyes once were.
*
Raven hair and a liar’s smile haunt her every dream. But the dead pay no debts to her.
*
Someone has to pay.
*
Years later, Sherringford Vernet meets her.
*
He pays in a coin of blood. Of bone. Of trust and of love.
Because she was too weak to do anything Before.
*
She’s not weak now.