Alethea has always been awkward - eccentric, even. On a typical day she spends her time cloistered inside a tiny apartment hiding from the world she doesn't really understand. When her therapist encourages her to push herself outside her comfort zon...
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How does a phoenix die? It wasn't something I had ever wanted to find out. The whole reason I had escaped and pushed myself through torturous conditions was to keep Roran alive. Unfortunately, in the end he took the choice out of my hands.
"Thea," I heard Roran whisper from somewhere far away. "Thea, look at me."
But I couldn't. My eyelids felt so heavy. With every second I slipped further and further into the dark, and every breath I took felt like the last.
His hands scorched my icy skin and his breaths felt like steam against my cheek.
"I lied to you, Thea. I need you to know that," he whispered, the words meaning nothing to me. I was dying. There was no reason to be angry. Soon it would no longer matter. Nothing mattered.
"I'm not a good man, I never was. If I were a good man I would have told you from the beginning."
Part of me wanted to ask what he was talking about, but the only thing that came from my mouth was a gurgle of blood.
"Shh, shh," he soothed me, cradling my head back against his shoulder. "I'm going to save you, Thea. I should have done this when you first started suffering, but I wanted to keep you with me as long as possible. God, I'm such a selfish bastard."
Should have done what? My brain sluggishly wondered.
I felt Roran press his forehead against mine and his breath whispered across my lips as he said, "I lied when I told you I didn't know of a way out. There was always a way out for you. I've known it for ages, but I was too much of a coward to go through with it. I couldn't have done this for anyone else, but you-"
His words cut off as I began choking and gasping: my body convulsing slightly from pain and lack of oxygen.
"It's going to hurt," he said, over my cries. "It's going to burn. It's going to burn you back alive."
I didn't know how anything could hurt worse than what I was already feeling, but when the burning started I wished he would have just let me die. My heart sputtered in and out of rhythm as fear and pain overwhelmed me.
"Don't be afraid, Thea. Look, can you see the flames?" he rasped against my ear. "I'm burning up so I can light the way back for you."
I could. Somehow I could see them, blazing white all around me in the dark. It was beautiful.
"Do me a favor, okay? Once you get back try not to fall into any more vampire dens."
His words were teasing, but his voice was pained. He sounded like he was in more pain than I was.
I tried to reply, to tell him I promised, but I couldn't draw in a deep enough breath.
His voice sounded scared as he gasped against my ear, "Thea, I-"
