This Is Not The End.

Chapter 43

I fell back to the ground, letting out a scream which escaped from nowhere. I forced my hand up to the wound, but when it came back coated in thick, crimson blood, my head spun.

I didn't realise what had happened until it was staring at me in the face.

My shoulder blade felt as if Jack had lit it on fire, sending waves of excruciating white heat down my back and causing my clothes to stick to my skin. I could feel the gush of blood from behind, and my mind went into overdrive, begging me to run, to move, to do anything, but I stayed still, pressing my hand to the exit wound and gritting my teeth through the pain. I couldn't move, wouldn't move, for fear of causing myself more damage. My fingers slid over my shoulder and I felt the fragmented bones floating around inside of it.

Fuck.

"The next one goes into your head," Ariadne raised her eyebrow at me, sick on the newfound power she had always grasped for. "Get on the bus,"

"Let me guess," I swallowed hard, baiting her. "No more Mr Nice Guy?"

I heard my name behind me, or in front of me – I couldn't be sure. Someone, somewhere, shouted out for me and I couldn't do anything to see if it were real or not. I wondered where Harry had got to. He could have doubled back for me, but I doubted it. He was disorientated enough without the sight of my blood.

Behind me, a part of the facility collapsed in on itself, and the last unoccupied portion of my mind shot to Beck and Kai. They were in there, but it didn't really matter – they had to be gone now.

"No more Mr Nice Guy," she agreed and shot a bullet at the floor just next to my foot. I felt the impact even when I jumped back. "Get on the goddamn bus,"

When I willed my foot to move, it wouldn't. I could tell Ariadne was beginning to get pissed off with me, and when she moved her gun in exasperation, my feet moved.

"Okay, okay!"

Something tugged at my hearing, again, but it didn't matter. This was it – the end.

My heart sunk. After everything we'd done to get this far, there I was on the ground, wanting to have done it better, or worse – but it wouldn't have mattered. Something told me I'd always end up at this moment. The stars had seen my wishes and exploded into cosmic nothingness.

This was really it. I was alone, again.

"Good girl," Ariadne purred, and I forced myself to look at her dead in the eye as I took my aching steps towards her. "Maybe you'll turn out like the others, after all,"

I thought would take them years to break me – hell, they hardly made a scratch before – but now I wasn't so sure. I didn't feel like me anymore. When I saw my reflection in the sheen of the bus, I couldn't recognise myself; I was a stranger on the street that I knew in the back of my mind, an old relative from when I was a child, but I wasn't Skye. I was Eyks, inverted and opposite, a ghost of who I knew, and I hated her.

The whirring sound of a helicopter blade overhead overcame my mind, and it hovered just far enough from the burning building behind me to stay safe until it began its descent onto the battlefield. The buzzing blades sent dust and rubble and blood spewing into the air, and I tried my hardest to keep my wound from getting anything in it.

The first thing I saw was my father stepping out, clearing off his well-oiled suit jacket with JONES, followed by a series of bright grey letters on the pocket, and latching his eyes on me without a care. He walked towards me, every movement like a drum against my ribcage. I shrunk back instinctively, my head spinning. He wasn't who I knew him as.

"Where is your brother?"

I didn't reply.

"We don't have time for this!" Ariadne called to him. "You can have a heart-to-heart at headquarters!"

'Headquarters' couldn't have been in Washington like we'd been told, and they had the transport to head cross-country. They could take me anywhere and I'd never make it back. I'd never see Kai or Harry or Jack or Cara or Beck again, and I couldn't live like that.

"You shot her?" David didn't seem mad – more inconvenienced.

"She gave me no choice,"

He let out a sigh so deep I could hear it without the microphone. "Get her on the bus,"

"Yes, sir,"

As if I wasn't moving quick enough, she pulled at my good shoulder and motioned with her gun. The bus got closer and closer, but I still couldn't feel myself moving. A part of me willed against it, the final bit of defiance I had in my ever-lessening blood, but I had so little fight left. Exhaustion tore at my being, lulling me into needed defeat, but I wanted to be strong enough to carry on. I'd been strong for so long... so long...

As the yellow shine of the bus got beneath my fingertips, my attention was captured by someone screaming my name behind me. This time, it was corporal and something I couldn't ignore anymore.

It was Kai's voice. The one that I spent every moment waiting for throughout the last five years. The sound broke through my pain like he had crawled out of the hole in my shoulder and healed it as he went.

"SKYE!"

I spun.

The Sun had crawled from the very depths of hell and taken half of the ash with him. Beck was at his heels, his face streaked with smoke residue and darkness, but I didn't think to look at him. Kai was here. Kai was safe.

"On the bus!" my father screamed, charging towards me, "Get on the bus!"

I didn't want to get on the bus.

Kai was catching up to me at rapid speed, each one of his strides equalling two of my fathers as he pushed himself to get to me. As he got close enough, he brought the knife Ariadne had given him those weeks ago and threw it as hard as he could towards her.

I watched as it lodged just above her elbow and she looked down to see the pool of red start to expand through her white shirt. She looked more annoyed than hurt, and I cursed myself for being disappointed.

"Get the fuck away from her!" Kai shouted, crossing the last few meters, throwing himself onto me. He pulled me into a hug but forced himself back when he realised I was hurt.

"I thought you were dead," I breathed, still not quite sure what had happened. Everything blurred, but I didn't care. He was here and everything would be okay again.

"I'm full of surprises," he grinned, "You're hurt-?"

"Well, isn't this a fun little reunion!" David shouted, striding closer to us. Beck put a hand on either of our shoulders, and the three of us stood in solidarity against him. "We're missing someone, though... where's the Flame?"

Tams, my father's right-hand woman, jumped down from the helicopter and ran out to his side, something not dissimilar to Ariadne's gun in her hand. Waiting for his approval, she nodded to her to run towards the copter, and took her spot, knocking once on the closest bus.  A grey-haired woman I'd never forget pushedJack and Cara out the bus, Cara's arms seared with deep bruises and Jack's tunictorn with ashy cuts by his own hand.