Glass Eye (Eyeless Jack X Reader)

Chapter Forty-Three

**GORE, DEATH. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.**

"Hey!"

Not even a soul turned to face me as I called out to the group rapidly making their way through the woods, and upon joining with them, I saw why.

Jack, moving as fast as possible without having to further disturb (Name), snapped his head to his side, where I had paralleled him in his pace, then again transfixed his sight back onto the girl. And though I hadn't been with them to see what had happened to her, I knew.

As I scanned over each and every one of them, I accounted for their expressions; tears in the eyes of the unknown woman accompanying them and also in the eyes of Tim, who I'd never before seen shed even a single tear. Haphazardly, I glanced at Jack, who's mask was hanging from around his neck by the strap; black tears streamed down his face as he kept his eyeless sights locked onto the barely breathing (Name); he hadn't even looked up to see where he was walking as Tim had taken his role in the front of the group to lead them directly to the mansion, working to guide Jack as best as he could.

Finally, my eyes landed on Brian. He looked disheveled; his hood had been pulled down from his face, his mask nowhere to be seen, and his dissociated expression told me all I needed to know.

Not only had he done this to her, but he also had the audacity to stay in the same vicinity as her after.

And that was all it took for a swirl of emotion to overtake me. Seeing her, bloodied and gasping for air, hit a little too close to home for me. Her face morphed into that of Lyra, her breaths becoming those of my beloved sister. I hadn't been able to save her, my sister, and now, I hadn't arrived on time to save (Name), either.

Suddenly and completely, it all made sense. Everything that had happened was surely the doing of the Operator himself. He had known ahead of time what would happen before it did; he saw through the lines that none of us could quite make out. Upon further inspection of the death-defying girl, I noticed the mark on her finger. Our mark.

There was a part of me that had always suspected it, but now that it was fully presented to me in the heat of the dawning sun through the treetops, I still found myself astounded.

She had managed to survive us, and therefore, had no choice but to join us. Had I caused this? I had wished for it; at one point, there was nothing I had wanted more than for her to become one of us, to never part from us. But in the same breath, I had unknowingly been wishing for her fate to be the exact replica of the life nearly every single one of us had had to endure and mold to; the life of a proxy, a mindless slave to our Operator. While reflecting back into my own life, wishing I had made a different choice, I was hoping for her to presented with that same dilemma. 

Worst of all, though, I still found myself a bit ecstatic at the fact that she'd never be leaving us.

"This is fucking ridiculous,"

Brian, breaking me from my hypocritical thoughts, stopped in his tracks and angerly gestured toward Jack, who still gripped (Name) as tightly as he could without eliciting any more pain from her.

Tim followed suit, whipping around in his spot so quickly that the dewy, morning dirt under his feet kicked up behind him.

"What's ridiculous is that you're still fucking alive, 'Hoodie',"

He spat the hated nickname of Brian's at him with full venom and malice as Jack had no choice but to stop in his tracks as well as he was no longer being guided by Tim and had refused to tear his gaze away from (Name) for even a moment.