RED HOOD ✔

22: ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY

Joshua remained kneeling, the dagger trembling in his grip, its blade smeared with blood. His wide, vacant eyes were fixed on the lifeless body before him. At just 14 years old, he had killed for the first time. The weight of it was suffocating.

"Joshua, you didn't have a choice," I said gently, though my voice wavered under the gravity of the moment.

"There's always another way..." he whispered, barely audible, "but I chose to kill him."

The despair in his voice clawed at my heart. His innocence was already slipping away, and now it felt like it had shattered entirely. I stepped forward, kneeling beside Marshall's body. He had been a heartless maniac, spreading terror through our village. But still, as its guardian, even evil men like him fell under my protection.

Cautiously, I pressed two fingers to his neck. A faint pulse. Weak, but there.

"I can save him," I murmured, almost to myself.

Joshua turned to me, his face etched with confusion and pain. "He's alive?"

"Barely," I replied, my gut churning. I hovered my hands over the wound. Healing magic wasn't something I had ever practiced, but desperation forced me to try. Moving my hands in slow, deliberate circles—my right clockwise, my left counterclockwise—I let instinct take over.

"Vitalis," the word slipped from my lips unbidden, ancient and foreign. I repeated it, again and again, until a soft green glow seeped from my palms, enveloping the wound. Slowly, the torn flesh began to mend. Though Marshall's breathing steadied, he didn't wake.

"Come on," I urged Joshua, snapping him out of his trance. "We need to go. He won't stay down for long."

With effort, we hefted Marshall upstairs. Nathan, who had been lying on the floor from earlier chaos, groaned dramatically before "fainting" again. Poor guy. Probably another migraine.

We stumbled out of the shop, and I shouted into the night, "KENDRA!"

A rush of wind swept past us as my personal beast landed, her golden scales glinting under the moonlight.

Master, Kendra's voice echoed in my head, calm and steady. Where to?

"Aunt Liza's house," I responded.

Joshua and I climbed onto her back, strapping Marshall securely behind us. The flight was silent. Joshua hadn't spoken since the stabbing, his face set in a storm of guilt and self-loathing.

"You okay, Josh?" I asked carefully.

He hesitated before nodding. "Yeah. Why do you ask?"

"You haven't spoken since..."

He cut me off with a sigh. "I'm okay, Vincent. It's just... even though he's alive, for a moment, I thought I'd killed him. I felt like a monster. And, in a way, I still do."

"What do you mean?"

He looked down, his voice barely a whisper. "When I stabbed him, there was so much anger in me, all the the morals that should have stopped me at that moment... didn't matter anymore. I wanted him dead. I intended to kill him."

I sighed, struggling to find the right words. "But you didn't, Joshua. That matters."

He turned away, unconvinced. The rest of the ride passed in awkward silence.

When we arrived at Aunt Liza's, I instructed Joshua to watch over Marshall while I went inside. The moment I stepped through the door, I was swarmed.

"VINCENT!" they cried in unison, practically tackling me.