𝐈𝐧𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝

Chapter Forty-Six: The End

The remainder of the car ride back to the mall was silent. No one spoke. There was no noise except Sam's faint sniffles and Jack's quiet sobs. I didn't make a sound or move a muscle. Once the van came to a stop, I waited for everyone else to leave before I stepped outside, the feeling being painfully familiar to me.

It seemed like every time I tried to break in somewhere and save someone, I lost them. And it all ended with me stepping off of a van. But this time I had blood on my hands.

I silently walked into the mall behind the rest of my friends but passed them when they stopped at the fountain. I decided I would walk to a quiet section of the mall which was ironic because it was completely abandoned.

I started walking towards a Barnes & Noble when I felt someone catch my arm. Without turning to see who it was I slid my arm out of their hand and continued to walk forward.

"Nora wait," the voice called to me as they reached out to stop me again. I spun around to face Taylor who stared back at me with care and grief in his eyes.

"Leave. Me. Alone," I growled and turned around to walk back to the store.

"Nora just wait," Taylor tried calling again as he jogged to catch up with me, but I turned around to face him again, causing him to stop in his tracks.

"No! You don't get to tell me to wait! You let her go down there to get me and she was shot because she wasn't by the van with you," I snapped, pointing my finger into his chest and glaring up at him. "And you told me that it would get better, that things would start to look up for me," I shook my head as tears started to form in my eyes. "That was bullshit, Taylor! You lied to me! Things just got exponentially worse!" I used my arms to shove him backwards, the tears starting to run down my cheeks again.

"I just lost my sister. The one thing I had left! Gone forever. I'm never going to see her again," I sobbed as Taylor reached a hand out to me.

I tried to push him back again as he wrapped his arms around me until I finally felt myself give in and stop fighting. I pressed myself into his chest as he ran a hand over my hair.

"She's gone, Taylor. She's gone forever," I whimpered as my tears soaked his shirt.

We stayed like that for some time. I couldn't exactly remember for how long. It could've been a minute, five minutes, an hour. I couldn't tell. But I huddled into Taylor's chest as we sat on the floor of the abandoned mall outside of the Barnes & Noble where all I could think about was how I just lost my baby sister.

How poetic, that every rescue mission ended with me losing the one person I attempted to save. Even when I tried my hardest and pushed myself to my limits, it would always end the same way. With me losing the people closest to me. And maybe that was my destiny. To ruin those who I cared about the most, the people I tried to save. Or maybe it was just in my nature to attract such suffering and spread it to everyone around me, starting with the people closest to me. Maybe Raine was right in my nightmare. Maybe I was a disease. But the one thing that I knew for sure was that I could never save anyone because if I tried, I would only ruin them even further.