"No," Leif cried, falling to his knees.
Sylrie felt numb. How had this happened? How had she let this happen? The figure turned towards Leif, sneering at him. Sylrie's heart stopped beating. No. She grabbed the figure's arm and twisted it backwards until she heard a snap. The figure screamed and fell to the ground, and Sylrie turned and started running towards Leif. She knelt down beside him.
"Leif," she whispered. "Leif. Can you hear me? Leif, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. This is my fault. I shouldn't have let this happen. I shouldn't have come back. I should have left you alone like your parents told me to. I'm so, so, so..."
Leif grabbed Sylrie and crushed her body against his.
"Please, Syl," he whispered into her hair, sending a shiver down her spine. "Please don't do this. There's nothing that you or I could have done to stop it. If you'd have stayed at the prison, then I would be dead too. Do not blame yourself. All right?"
When Sylrie didn't answer, Leif lifted his head, his eyes meeting hers.
"Syl. Sylrie. You are the best thing that could have possibly happened to me. Don't you dare argue. You are. Syl, I knew from the second I saw you. You're not a bad person."
Sylrie tried to protest.
"Leif, how am I not? If I'd just..."
"Syl, how are you? You, a bad person? Never. You've helped me in so many ways that I can't list them all. You saved my life within the first few minutes of meeting me. You shoved me out of the way of the shelves and let them fall on you instead. You let yourself be injured to spare me and my mother. This is not your fault, or mine."
Leif fixed his eyes on some point over her shoulder. His eyes hardened.
"It is, however, their fault."
Sylrie looked over her shoulder, and shivered. The cloaked figures were picking themselves up off the ground, one of them wincing and trying not to put pressure on their right arm. Sylrie stood, grabbing her gun from her waistband.
"You come one step closer and I put a bullet through your skull," she said calmly. "You got that?"
One of the figures grinned and charged at her. She lifted the gun, aimed and fired. The bullet hit the figure in the shoulder. They gasped and fell to the ground.
"I warned you," said Sylrie, raising the gun again.
The remaining figures turned and ran, looking for a way down off the roof.
"Good," she said, half to herself.
She turned back to Leif. He was staring after the retreating Draconians. Hatred clouded his gaze. Sylrie shivered. Leif's gaze returned to her, and then softened.
"Come on," Sylrie said. "Let's find a way off this roof."
YOU ARE READING
Everlasting
General Fiction*COMPLETED* Sylrie Noir's life was hard enough as it was. She had been orphaned and exiled as a child, and all other children who had the misfortune of meeting her had run away after a few minutes, screaming and crying. And it was all because of the...
