City of the Fallen - unedited

Chapter Fifty-One

I wake up, not realizing I had fallen asleep. I'm warm, like I'm lying on something soft. I rub my face, feeling the dry tears that left marks all over my face.

My eyes are puffy, my sinuses are stuffed and I think about what happened yesterday. I think about Nick.

I have to try hard not to cry, but my thoughts quickly change subjects when I realize what I'm laying on.

Colton is asleep, his arms spread wide, a blanket over the two of us.

My head is resting on his chest, we're lying under a tree. I don't remember any of this happening, I don't remember falling asleep. The last event I recall is collapsing onto the ground crying.

I can't imagine what Colton thinks of me now, he probably thinks I'm some emotional freak. I can't stand the thought of me crying in front of him.

I sit up, the sun warming up my skin. It has to be late in the day, because we got back to the middle world very late at night.

I'm still surprised at how quickly it took us to find Nick, I expected it to take a few hours. It also didn't take me long to lose him. Colton said that we might've had to spend a day there, which is unimaginable.

I stare at the grass, not sure what to do with myself. I basically killed my brother. I wish I could hug him just one more time.

Colton moves slightly, and sits up next to me rubbing his eyes. I'm too ashamed to say anything to him and too confused to ask him what happened last night. All I know is that his chest is extremely comfortable because I slept really well last night.

"Are you ready to get going?" Colton inquires in a raspy voice. He moves his backpack in between his legs and begins packing things inside.

"Sure." I reply and push myself to my feet. "Where do we go to get back to the Afterworld?"

"We have to walk about two hours east to another museum. There's another gate similar to Pluto's gate." He answers, placing the straps to his backpack around his shoulders.

"How many gates are there? Are they just scattered all around the world?" I ask in a dull voice as we begin our journey back. I have to walk fairly slowly and I limp as I do so, but the pain is getting better.

"There's twelve to the Underworld and seven to the Afterworld. We got lucky this time because Pluto's gate and Sukko's gate are really close to each other. If we appeared in Israel or Argentina or something, this would be a different story and we probably would've had to walk for days to get back." He explains.

I nod in acknowledgement, I don't feel like saying anything in response. I'm too scared that I was going to say something and my voice would crack and I would start crying again.

I have to save it for when I get back to my room by myself.

Oh no.

I can't imagine what it's going to be like telling Brooke what happened. She has been so confident that we'd save him.