Thrice Upon A Choice

Chapter XVIII

"IT'S NOT HER!" Thorne bellowed from beside me, seeing her eyes at the same moment I had.

My heart had dropped in that moment. I felt empty. Killing Seok should have saved her, what else could? She was fighting so hard, and yet she was losing and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Aspen was stuck inside her own body and I couldn't reach in and pull her out. I couldn't save her.

In the seconds where she held my gaze, I felt eons stretch by. Her whole life, was to lead to this. If it was me, I'd want her to kill me. She would want me to kill her. That realization hit me so hard that my lungs deflated. I would have to kill her.

No.

I refused. Everyone could be saved and even if I had to chain her up and wait to see if the affects would ever leave her, I'd do it. I had to cling to the hope that she would come back to me. Because the night on the roof when I had told her what would happen to me if she died...this was worse. This was so much worse than dying. Because she was right in front of me; but she wasn't.

"Don't let her die," my command was directed at Thorne but he was too far away and it had been too weak; dying the moment it left my lips.

Don't let me be the last one alive.

She had begged that of me, what seemed like an eternity ago. That had been such a dark and guarded fear and suddenly I was realizing one of my own. Because life comes with casualties. My father and mother, my little brother, Jiro. I had come so close to losing Dante and now I was faced with the option of losing Aspen.

"Bastian!" I heard my sister's distant scream.

With her warning, I was suddenly shoved aside so hard that I rolled to the ground as Joo charged through me, his arm swift as he threw a knife aimed for Aspen's head. My protest was drowned out but Aspen ducked anyway, before leaping back up again and skidding towards Joo, black eyes flashing. Thorne put himself between them and I saw Echo stumbling to her feet to help him, but Aspen was too strong. She swiped him aside as if he were a bug in her face, dislodging his kneecap and throwing him out of the way before anyone else could react. She didn't bat an eyelid as she used Echo's running momentum in her favour, knocking the smaller girl away with a sharp blow to her head with the crook of her elbow. There was nothing between her and Joo now.

"ASPEN NO!" I cried as she grabbed at his shirt.

Joo's protests were nothing as she placed her hands on either side of his head, lining him up to become another Otto. But she froze with the click of a rifle as Mimi turned off the safety.

Mimi stood not five meters from where Aspen held her brother's life in her hands. Mimi's rifle was raised and aimed squarely at Aspen's chest.

"Aspen, please," the girl begged, "Don't make me do this, I don't want to do this."

I watched Joo strain as her fingernails dug into his scalp. Aspen was going to kill him, I could see it in the way she tensed, waiting only on Mimi to hesitate in the slightest way, to be distracted for only a second.

A second was all she would need.

"Mimi, no," I whispered in heaving, broken, desperate words, as I pushed myself to my feet, rolling up from the dust.

"Let go of him, Aspen," Mimi was speaking clearly but tears were starting to shimmer in her eyes.

I was on my feet, I was running.

"Aspen, I'm going to ask you one last time. Let Joo go."

I saw the strain of a tendon in my Beta's arm. I heard the tiny gasp of realization escape Joo's mouth. I tasted the dust in the air and the blood in my mouth and I watched as Mimi's finger guided the trigger back.