WAR STORM (Red Queen 4// Alternate Version)

Epilogue 5

Mare

I awake long, long before dawn arrives, sitting up from bed in a smooth yet flustered motion, knowing what happens today previous to recalling my own name. 

Mare.

But the voice that says it in my head isn't my own, but that of a dead and gone fire prince. 

The doors to the balcony are still flung open, and without looking, I pray that Iris has vacated the beach and relented to a few hours of sleep. It's utterly dark outside, no hint of the sun rising over the ocean.

Without any haste at all, I slip my day clothes on, tie my already-greying hair into a loose tail at the base of my scalp. I don't bother to look myself over in the mirror, at the simple black pants that flare out and stop at my calf, the black shirt, or jacket. My drawn face. 

Almost rolling my eyes at myself, I leave the room, the bolt clicking behind me. Though I'd like to bet that the sun will be out in an hour, that my comrades' alarms will be ringing any moment know, I know better than to bet. Judging by the dull ache in the back of my head, I didn't get a full night of rest. Not that I was expectant of one.

The perfectly-made steps allow me to descend into the lower rooms without sound, a phantom in my own right. I slip into the spotless kitchen, not pattering the walls for a light switch to turn on; my mind instead reaches out, searches for energy above me until settling on a bank of lights over the island. They flicker on, casting the large room in a butter yellow light. 

The clock near the oven reads the time. Three-forty-six.

Great. Sunrise isn't for at least another three hours. And in spite of the tiredness that pushes me to go back to sleep, it'll only be a rest crowded with tossing and turning. At least if I'm awake, I might accomplish something.

That something, I'm not sure what it would be. 

Through the glass panes, there's an ocean. I could go and sit, meditate and listen, or do whatever else the hell I please by the water. Run down the shorelines, bare-footed. On my other side is a door, to the car and the driveway. Silently, I curse all the Silvers who taught me many things, but never taught me to drive. Because they didn't want you to get away.

Yet there's still a road. I can't cover the same distance on foot, but it's something to provide a little ease to my roaring heart, while not coming too close to the ocean. And I can't put my finger on it, but there's a wrong feeling in going to the ocean early, walking along its shores when I know Iris, Bart, Julian, Maven, and I will be spreading his ashes there when dawn comes. 

Then it'll be over. 

Before I can think on it, act on my feelings and summon a storm in which I'd calm my anger, I bite my lips down and walk across the room to the door. 

As the cool breeze of night hits me, I promise myself that I won't go back to that pathetic apartment. If I'm called on by Davidson for help, so be it. I'll find somewhere else to stay, but not that pathetic apartment.  I spent enough wasted, sad moments in there, contemplating, thinking. Jumping to conclusions I couldn't possibly make without more reasoning. Drowning. Drowning in that indescribable, self-inflicted sorrow. I'd still be drowning if it weren't for this trip. 

Before I so much as cross the invisible lining dividing the driveway from the clean and freshly tarred road, I decide that this won't be a walk. 

It will be a run. In the dark, all alone. 

As I start into a steady jog, any lurk of fear I have tucked away by larger concerns, I give a wide, crazed smile to the night. Because it's either smile or cry, and though the smile is mostly bitter, I give it anyway, to anybody that is impossibly watching. My boots eat up the road, the lights of Bart and Iris's borrowed house growing smaller with each pound of my foot.