Consuming Fire

Chapter 56

Will didn't really sleep. Every time his eyes drooped shut, he forced them open again. Every time he heard voices, he jumped and turned to her body, praying it was Fearne speaking to him. But it was only a nurse on her night shift checking the injured.

The transfusion hadn't worked. Will tore the needle from his arm and threw it to the ground, ignoring the gash he'd opened up and the fact that Joshua was right. He didn't understand. She should have healed. 

Fearne's hand was cold. He held onto her tiny fingers, her delicate skin so soft and frail, her eyes unwavering. She took a shallow breath in.

Tears rolled freely down his cheeks as he stared at her peaceful face.

"Fearne?" he said. His voice broke. "Fearne, p-please open your eyes. Please."

She didn't move.

Eyes closed, he prayed that she would reach out to him in his dreams, just one last time, to speak again in that warm, pure voice inside his mind.

And for a moment, he thought she did.

"You'll be okay ..."

The echo of her voice was hauntingly soft, weak and about to disappear. Will looked up at her through blurry eyes.

"Fearne?"

"I love you, Will ..."

He looked up at the heart rate monitor and saw the ECG lines spike with the slow beat of her heart until suddenly, the line was straight and her heart stopped beating.

She breathed out for the last time, and Will stared at her peaceful face for what could have been minutes, not wanting to believe she was gone.

No one came running. They didn't try to save her, there was no CPR or anything. Her end was inevitable. They knew it. Somewhere deep inside him, even before he stuck a needle in his own arm to try and save her with his blood, he knew that everyone had given up on Fearne.

Even Fearne herself.

Will broke down. He pressed his head against her chest and cried silently so as not to wake Hunter. He wasn't willing to part with her hand.

Eventually, though, he decided he needed to be away from her body. He couldn't comprehend the fact that he would never hear her laugh or feel her frail arms wrap around his neck and hold him or tell him something wise that only she would say or smile and light up her green eyes with joy and wonder. He couldn't.

So he went looking for her in the only place he knew how.

It felt like a dream, walking through the compound. It was very early in the morning and the corridors reminded him of ICE, only foreign and never-ending. Knowing they were on a mountainside, he went upstairs to find the surface. On Ward A, he walked to the end of a low-roofed concrete corridor where there was an exit sign and a hatch leading up. There were no warning signs or coded doors. It was so strange to be free.

As Will shoved the hatch and climbed up into daylight, he came face to face with the second most amazing view he'd ever seen. It was some kind of desert – a picture he'd only seen in Dr. Rosenthal's books. There were orange, rocky mountains all around them and rolling hills stretched far and wide. The sun was about to make its appearance soon, and Will was just in time to witness it.

But he was not there to see the sun. He was there to see Fearne.

It was a tricky climb down the dusty path to the edge of the cliff the compound was built beneath. The view didn't particularly matter to Will – it was the dangerous edges he searched for. After heading down the slope and over a challenging mound, he found a clear spot on the edge of a drop that had to be over twenty meters. That would certainly hurt, but not enough to kill him instantly if he landed right. That was what he wanted.