The Academy (Part 2 of the Syndicate Series)

Chapter 22- Goodbyes

Rosine:

The panic over my uncle's death was gone, replaced by nothinglessness. I felt absolutely nothing.

Not my feet, not my hands, not even the heart in my chest. My emotions were gone as well, sucked out of my body with my last breath. There wasn't air in my lungs, like my body had forgotten how to breathe, like I was drowning again.

There was a tiny part of my brain that hoped I was hallucinating, that my head wound from earlier might have been a bad enough concussion. But no, I knew what I was looking at. Blaise, my best friend who had always been so protective and attentive to my sister, loved her. And who could blame him- she was the best person I knew. She was everything I couldn't be, Belle was someone thrown into this hell of a life who managed to still show love and kindness. She was the kind of person that Blaise needed, the perfect balance.

And as they broke apart from their kiss, the air flooded my lungs. It wasn't until I stumbled back that I realized I was shaking.

Fuck, I was stupid.

How did I not see it before? Had their connection even existed before I was stolen away to the Academy? Was this new, or had I just been blind for so long?

Of course Blaise didn't love me, he'd never even thought about me in that way. We'd always been friends, it was nothing more to him. And now he was kissing my sister. Their body language told me all that I needed to know- this was no spur of the moment kiss, done out of exhilaration and adrenaline. This was something much more.

And I knew my sister. Belle needed him. They needed each other now more than ever, because there was only one option for me now, and they would need each other to deal with the whole mess on their own.

It would have been right to stay. It would be the noble and proper thing to do, but I knew I couldn't do it, though. I couldn't live my life here, with my twin sister dating the person I wanted to be with, in the house filled with childhood memories where my uncle died because I was too slow to stop my own father.

My uncle. Oh god, my uncle. He was laying on the ground, undeniably dead. I couldn't even bring myself to look down at the body again, the guilt was crushing, bearing down on my shoulders like a boulder and twisting through my stomach like a knife to the gut.

But when it came to my father, I almost felt nothing. I had no energy or mental space left to spare for the conflicting emotions I should have experienced. I should have felt self hatred, but instead there was only relief. I should have been repulsed at the patricide of my own father, but there was only pride that I made sure he could never hurt the people I loved.

There was no regret. None of the proper emotions. Just the Nothing.

Just a haze of pain that fogged my brain and made it impossible to understand what was going on around me. I had a stupid brain, one with no common sense that had somehow allowed to convince the rest of my body that Blaise could ever love me in return. Maybe he did, but it was as a friend, a childhood companion. He loved my sister the way I wished he loved me.

The ache wasn't only in my heart, it was in my whole body now, overwhelming sense and reason so that I couldn't even comprehend everything around me. I could only make one decision, and it was that I couldn't stay, I had to leave. I wanted nothing of this place, where my dead family lay behind me and the live ones had a future together. I had no part in this, I wasn't fit to run this place and I never even got the necessary training. It only would have worked if Blaise was by my side.

I loved him too much to reclaim my title now. I couldn't take it from him, the one thing he had spent years preparing for and learning. He and my sister could be happy together, they would balance each other and provide stability, they would run this business with fairness and strength. I would only be in their way, a constant question in the line of succession.