This Is Not The End.

Chapter 45

One second, Cara was in my grasp, an arm's stretch away, and then she was gone. They both were gone, and we were left to pick up where they'd left off – to fill in the gaps like a missing organ.

As the helicopter finally faded from view, I let myself collapse amongst the bodies and watched as the sun faded from the sky.

My family, my real family, was broken into two pieces like delicate china ornaments. Something that had once driven me to live was now ripped from my very being like a used bandage, and I felt it more in my aching soul than the bullet wound in my shoulder.

I wanted to feel numb. Nothing at all was better than this.

Someone sat next to me, but I didn't notice them. They pulled off my tunic to reveal my black tank top underneath and began to work at the bloody hole. I welcomed the pain.

I could see Beck, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to have to see him scream at the sky and hurt himself as he drove himself mad. I watched him progress from anger to pleading, and I began to tear at my skin as he begged to have Cara back, his broken voice like nails on a chalkboard.

Cheyenne placed a hand gently on my good shoulder once she had patched me up as best she could, but I stayed staring ahead. Her face was littered with small patches of green scales, and vast bruises which broke onto her forehead from her cheekbones. I wanted to acknowledge her, but neither of us were ready for that. It had been a massacre from the start, except no one had noticed it.

"Skye..." Harry broke me out of my trance, appearing from the labyrinth of woodland with small cuts and marks from outstretched branches. "What, what the hell happened here?"

I wanted to be mad at him – he was easy to take anger out on – but I couldn't. I'd told him to run, and he'd listened to me. That wasn't something I could blame him for. He'd been held in one room, half-dead, for god knows how many years; I couldn't expect him to start fighting in a battle he had no recollection of. It was his fight, yes, but he had to learn his place.

Automatically, I pushed myself onto my feet and met him in the middle, embracing him without a care. It wasn't fair that I'd lost one brother and gained another, but I preferred it over nothing. He hugged me back unfamiliarly but didn't move, he knew I needed it, and by God, did I need it.

"Everyone's-?"

"-Gone." I finished, rubbing my eyes with filthy fingers. "But we'll get them back,"

The words sounded like honey coming from my tongue: we'll get them back. It was the only hope I had, my lifeline, and they would become my mantra whether I realised it or not.

"How?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. Jack sat a little to my right, trying desperately to break his way out of his boots instead of processing what had happened, and Beck had calmed down slightly, sobbing quietly as opposed to screaming. "We'll find a way. We always find a way."

"Night's soon to fall," Cheyenne noticed, rounding up her last few Shifters, each slightly mutated from the trauma. She held herself differently now, a slight difference but one nonetheless, and I realised her aunt – her chief – was amongst the dead. She was in charge, now. "We should get moving to find shelter,"

The burning building behind us would do us no favours. We needed somewhere sensible which could house about thirty of us.

"Let's, uh, let's gather up survivors and we'll head out," I said, "Sound good?"

"I'll get started,"

I didn't want to move. For all I cared, the Infected could invade us and contort our warm bodies into fine dining, but that wouldn't save Kai or Cara or any of the other kids. We had to get going, and we had to get a grip.

I found myself sitting next to Jack and Beck, with Harry sitting awkwardly to one side. The three of us acknowledged each other with silence, but it spoke oceans. Beck reached out for my hand and I let him take it, feeling the familiarity of skin-on-skin, and Jack sat there staring, but I knew he needed us next to him.

No one spoke. It wasn't right to speak. We were acting as if our friends were dead, but it wasn't them who had passed away. Our safety had been murdered once again, and it was beginning to be hard to trust in it. How long did we have next time – months? Years? It didn't matter. As soon as we felt secure, someone tore it away and we were left in the ashes of who we wanted to be. I was sick to my stomach of it.

"Headquarters," Jack said. "It's in Detroit. They didn't think I was listening, but I was,"

I nodded, "We can make it."

He stood abruptly, stumbling over to a forgotten laundry bag beneath a pile of rubble. With trembling hands, he pulled out Kai's cow print bucket hat, the white turned grey with dust, and clutched it in his fingers.

"We're gonna get him back," he said after a moment, his voice quivering as he tried to hold back his emotions. "We're gonna get him back!"

I forced myself to my feet, pulling my eyes away from the hat, and Beck stood with me, the two of us relying informally on the other for support.

"We're gonna get both of them back." I promised, and I swore it to myself too. I'd never break it. "This is not how it's supposed to go,"

Cheyenne called over to us and we knew it was time. We lingered unnecessarily, watching as the fire overwhelmed the building Jack and I had grown up in. The flames spread to my heart, and I understood Jack's power. To be a Flame was to need, and I needed my family back.

Our survival would have to wait because we couldn't survive without Kai and Cara. Kai was the sort of person you'd miss like a limb when he wasn't around, and Cara reminded me every day why I loved to be alive. They tied me to this planet and I needed them if we were to ever find peace again because they were my peace. I knew Jack and Beckett were with me, it was as obvious as the air we breathed, and that gave me all the strength in the world. Hell, I even had Harry and half a tribe full of Shifters on my side – we'd get them back if we had to storm the whole of SWORD's Headquarters to do it, and we would in a heartbeat.

Yes. Everything would have to wait, because SWORD had our family, and this is not the end.