THE FADING FALLEN ● Bucky Barnes X OC ● 18+ ● ENGLISH [COMPLETE]

Chapter 59

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"I had no choice."

That voice. Quiet, fragile. Full of regret and doubt, it filtered through to him.

"She wouldn't let me take control."

It was hers. And yet, again, not.

"Why does it feel so wrong?"

The thick fog lifted a little. Something shimmered through the darkness.

"Is it my fault? Am I the reason she can't accept the consequences?"

Bucky took a few steps toward it. The closer he got, the clearer the outlines became... and the colors.

The young woman knelt slumped in front of the lifeless body of a man and looked into his face. His eyes were wide open. The expression distorted in agony, as if frozen in stone.

Her hair drenched in blood. So were her clothes and the ground beneath them.

It took Bucky a while to realize who the young woman was.

"Mia!"

He hurried toward her and settled down beside. Carefully, he grabbed her face and turned it toward him.

Empty-looking eyes stared back at him. Not dark red. Instead, pitch black. Like two dull tourmalines.

From them also pitch-black tears ran over the soft cheeks. There they mingled with the man's bright blood.

"She's gone, Sgt. Barnes."

An icy chill ran down his spine as he heard Josephine's words.

"What... do you mean? Where is she?"

"She's not coming back. And it's my fault."

As if paralyzed, his hands sank down. Bucky's gaze went blank as she continued in a guilt-ridden voice.

"I thought I could protect her. Protect us from all those horrible feelings. The pain, the loss, this pure despair. There was only this one way for me. I didn't see that it was the wrong way."

Josephine turned her head back to the man in front of her. Rapha's lifeless expression turned skyward.

"My selfishness has blinded me. Believing that my will was the only thing that mattered, I didn't listen to what she was trying to tell me. That she was trying to tell me she could accept."

As if in a trance, Bucky listened to the voice that was familiar to him. But he could no longer recognize Emilia in it.

"She didn't want to fight him. And I made her. She just let it happen... and left."

Nothing was heard. Only silence.

"I, too, must accept the consequences of my actions. I realized that. But what am I supposed to do now? I've only ever been there to protect her."

Josephine raised her head and glanced back. Bucky could tell from her look that she was distraught.

Only now did he truly understand the inner struggle Emilia must have been having with her and this part of herself. A part that actually belonged to her and which she had a hard time accepting.