Fury and Flame | 3

8 | 4

D E L P H I N I U M

      Outside of the burning fortress, the world was in chaos.

Our army had advanced, mixing with Imperium's. There were no more fighter jets in the sky, but the victor of their battle was unknown.

A few heads turned when I exited the massive doorway. And their eyes narrowed in on the masked head I carried in hand.

      Their leader was dead. Their empire had been ripped up by the roots. The sun would never rise on Imperium.

      Looking up, I took in the decorative spikes that lined the path to the gaping entrance.

And I left empty handed, with Orion's masked decapitated head on a pike for all his men to see.

While gaining the upper hand over the Imperium army, the soldiers on my side parted before me, allowing me to get behind the front lines and into safety. I may have made myself appear forbidding enough, but on the inside, I felt ready to collapse. I knew I couldn't take another fight.

      As I wove between the olive-clothed men and women, I searched for any sign of my teammates. When there were no immediate sightings, I had the horrible fear that I would be the only survivor of our crew. What if I searched and searched and never found them? Or what if I recognized their faces among the fallen?

In that moment, I knew I would rather die than live out the rest of my life without them.

      My panic grew every passing second until I came to a bit of a clearing from which the soldiers kept their distance. Huddled together, my teammates stood in it.

      I began to let my gaze roll over them all, silently counting that everyone was there, but stopped when my eyes locked with Jake's, who was standing apart from the group.

      For a moment, I simply stared at him, took in his hardened expression. There was no change in his face when he saw me. He was bleeding in a few different places, but still stood solidly. He was alive. He was alive.

      I wasn't sure whether it was because of the ordeal of war or because he was standing there still alive and well, but I found the courage to close the distance between us. I'd deal with the repercussions later. Right now, I didn't care about the walls we'd both built up. I didn't care that the scars from our pasts ran too deep for us to ever be ordinary. I didn't care that our circumstances and his trauma would keep us from ever really being together in a normal way.

      Noting the way his whole cold body went still, I threw my arms around his solid self and let the emotions come tumbling out. He smelled of blood and death and suffering, but I didn't mind. He was safety. Home.

      Practically teeming with shame and restraint, he barely reciprocated. But I understood. The only things he was well-versed in were treachery and death. Anything else was a mystery for him.

      Still, I could feel how shallow his breathing was, as if he had to remind himself to continue doing it.

After what seemed like too little time, I pulled away, wiping at the wetness from my eyes. I faced the others, leaving him to wonder what the hell had just happened.

      When I saw what the others were circled around, all the oxygen was choked from my lungs.

      Finn's dead body.