The Unforgiving Moon

45.

I was running and running and running, not minding where I went or how far it took me from the base camp. 

The forest seemed endless, like the bottomless pit of plaguing thoughts that taunted me. In every direction I ran, the trees seemed to grow thicker, the bushes grew wilder and the path disappeared into a trail of fallen leaves and dark shadows.

My perception of reality was bending the more I ran, because Moons—I had just signed my death warrant. I had started digging my own grave the second I hadn't told Aven about everything, I had dug it deeper and deeper with every passing day, and just now I had given him the last bit he needed to close the ground on me and bury me forever.

I had threatened Selene. Of course, I would never hurt her. But in a moment of wild, blinding rage, I had spoken her name, I had confirmed her survival—Moons, her existence—and above all I had called out her strength, her potential value to this war. 

If only one person was hiding in the shadows, if Dell had the singlest inkling of doubt in Aven and had sent someone after us to spy on us... I had risked it all.

And for what? Only because Aven got a rise out of my emotions—which he seemed to do quite often? Had that been all it took for me to lose everything I was working for?

I was surprised Aven even let me run. That he let me live. If I were him, I would have killed me on the spot. It was probable he still might—which meant I had to keep running and running and running until he could find no trace of me anymore. 

And if that meant I would get lost in this forest, if that meant I'd have to go rogue—then so be it. But at least I would live. 

Get out of my sight before I kill you all the same. My mind echoed the words over and over and over, relentlessly bullying me, haunting me, overpowering me.

My lungs were burning, but I just kept running in whatever direction my legs took me. 

Get out of my sight before I kill you all the same. Get out of my sight before I kill you all the same. Get out of my sight before I kill you all the same.

The words blurred together, yet had never been more clear. He would kill me, how could he not? But he would probably first hunt down this presence in the forest, this dark, ominous pull that indicated we were not alone.

I had felt it when I had spoken her name—and I had spoken it all the same. How could I have been so stupid, how could I have been so reckless, how could I have been so blind? I never was during my time in Spitta—I never walked the line of Beckett's limits so closely. And I'd crossed Aven's by a mile—I had torn them down.

Perhaps I deserved to die for it. A death for a death, because if Selene died now, I had caused it. Maybe I should deliver myself to Aven's mercy and stop running.

Only I couldn't. My legs had a mind of its own—and they were guided by this darkness that flowed in my blood and I cursed it, I cursed it more than I ever had.

It had ruined me. This gift had given me nothing good—it had gotten me locked up and tortured in a cell, it had made me kill people, and it had made me lose control of everything I built. 

It was exhausting to constantly be aware of what I possessed, to feel it all the time and then rail it back—to stop me from killing people. It was draining and I was almost empty—and even now I had to fight it, because it wanted to overtake me. I felt it itching my skin, twisting my bones, and begging me for a release. 

But if I did that—if I gave in—Moons knew what the consequences would be. And given the task me and Selene had been given, it wouldn't be pretty. It would be bloody and deadly, so I could not let go. I couldn't let go and I couldn't breathe, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't brea-