Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
NESTA DIDN'T REALIZE when she got home that the only thing she felt was Sejanus's arms no longer holding her comfortably and being replaced by her father's strong arms. She didn't hear what they said, nor did she hear when Sejanus said goodbye. She only felt a small kiss of comfort from her friend on her head; the shock was still present, and she could barely move.
Flashbacks of the war were present in her head; the gunshots, Arachne's blood, and Brandy's dead body only helped to reinforce the horrible memories she tried to keep hidden.
The noise of the shots was the worst; it reminded her of Mattheo, her older brother, who was cowardly killed during the revelry, and when the image of his body came to the girl's head, she came out of her shock and blurted out a loud, painful cry.
The memory, although old, was still fresh in Nesta's head. The two siblings were running through the rubble of the war to try to find their parents when suddenly a rebel shot the poor 15-year-old boy who just wanted to protect his little sister and going into his parents' arms, a 6-year-old Nesta shook her brother's body while screaming his name in a thin, childish voice, which shouldn't have been crying so intensely at such a young age.
After that, she didn't remember anything; the following years of the war were just a blur.
She leaned her head closer to her father's chest.
The older man looked at his daughter in pain. She looked so fragile and small in his arms; she looked like the same girl from 12 years ago who had just lost her brother. "It's okay, honey; dad is here." He said it again and again while a hand stroked the crying girl's hair, but she didn't calm down; on the contrary, the crying seemed to get stronger.
All that came to her mind was the name Mattheo.
"Mattheo wake up..." Nesta whispered repeatedly, and the man tightens his grip on his daughter. The scene from 12 ago was being repeated through memories.
After a while, the other woman in the house arrived in a rush, and the first scene she saw was her daughter in her husband's arms crying uncontrollably, and that scene hurt her. She quickly joined the hug and pulled the girl closer into her arms while kissing her head.
"Shouldn't you be working?" Nesta asked between sobs, a little calmer than she was before. "I should have, but I found out about what happened at the zoo," the woman replied softly and her daughter nodded.
She worked with Agnes Crane, Arachne's mother, so it wasn't difficult to find out what happened at the zoo when she saw the other woman crying and screaming for her daughter's name, she felt sick. The woman was horrible but definitely didn't deserve it losing her only child. Mrs. Dante knew that this pain was irreversible.
Every year, twenty-three families were destroyed, and this year already have been two.
Slowly, the crying became quieter, and when the two adults looked between their arms, what they found was their sleeping daughter, who still had red cheeks and traces of dried tears.
