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| - ❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅ If you love me, don't let go . . . Hold, hold on, hold onto me — X Ambassadors, Unsteady "LUCIFER!" I practically throw myself down the cliff, sliding and skidding and scraping myself on jagged bits of rock. The white tom is crouched over Cecily like a ghostly angel, but there is all of hell's pain in his eyes. "Is she . . .?" I bring myself to a stop as I see Cecily move, a slight twitch so that her muzzle is touching Lucifer's paw. He immediately bends down so his eyes are level with hers; his are filled with tears. I've never seen him so emotional, though I've seen him at some pretty dark times. My heart wrenches inside me as I take a step back, not wanting to intrude. "I'm sorry." Cecily's voice shakes like a leaf; she's this close to falling, hanging onto life by the thinnest sliver. "We could've been so much more, I could've been so much more, but I . . . made all the wrong choices." Lucifer doesn't even seem to hear her. "I can get Miko." He spins and sees me. "Don't just stand there! Get Miko!" I feel useless. It's not like I can run up the mountain and get Miko; it's clear to me that Cecily has moments, maybe seconds left to live. But suddenly I want to try. Anything to avoid Lucifer staring at me with that pleading, desperate look in his eyes, as if it's my fault, as if I could do something but am choosing not to. "Everly!" I hear Jett and Plover's voices calling down to me from the ledge, but safety is the last thing on my mind. "It's going to be all right." Lucifer curls around Cecily ever so gently, careful not to shift her. Her eyelids are fluttering shut, but I can still see flashes of her fierce green irises. All that blood, drenching her glorious silver pelt . . . It's wrong, so wrong. Cats like Cecily aren't supposed to bleed out, broken and sorry, regretful and lost, but this mountain is too cold to care. I think of my parents, and then Juniper and Starlight, and feel the wound open anew in my heart, sorrow spewing out like poison in my bloodstream. There is nothing like the pain of watching someone die young. "Lucifer . . . I know you won't believe this, but if it weren't for everything . . . the asara, my mother, I could have . . . I could have loved you so much. But we were doomed from the start and I--" Cecily breaks off with a cough. Blood splatters the snow. "I forgive you. I forgive you, okay?" Lucifer presses his nose to her forehead and holds her tight. "Okay," she sighs, and I watch the life leave her body as she sags in his grasp, her head rolling back on his shoulder. Lucifer freezes. I hold my breath. The air seems to have gone suddenly colder, which is saying something, considering it's always, always cold. Finally, Lucifer stands, letting Cecily's body sprawl on the ground. "She could be asleep, but for the blood," he whispers. That's not true; it's evident by the unnatural twist of her limbs that Cecily's internal organs and bones are far gone, but I don't say it. "I never thought she would die." "I know," I murmur, and I step forward in time for Lucifer to fall against me. "Everly? Everly?" A paw prods my shoulder. I try to move, but I've been sitting still for so long that my body feels frozen into place. My muscles grumble, then outright shout in pain as I force myself to my paws. Snow skitters off my pelt, and ice crackles and crumbles from the tips of my ears. "You're shaking," Lucifer observes, drawing me closer. "I'm keeping vigil," I mumble, my voice muffled by his pelt. "So were the others, but they found shelter underneath that fallen pine log ages ago. It's too cold to be out all night, Everly." "Stop it." "Stop what?" I push him away. "Comforting me. It's supposed to be the other way around. I didn't just lose my childhood friend." A frown creases Lucifer's brow. "Can I confess something? I feel like there's something selfish in my grief for Cecily." "What do you mean?" "I just . . . It's like I'm trying to make up for everything I didn't get to mourn for all my life. My mother's death, my kithood, even never really knowing Riverfrost. All that sadness -- maybe the asara didn't make it disappear, just held it back. And now there's no barrier and it's uncontrollable." Lucifer shuts his eyes. "It hurts so much, Everly. I don't know what to do. I've never lost someone like this." "I know," I whisper. "All the sadness becomes part of you too, after a while." "Come on. We don't have to be with the others, but we need to get out of the wind." I look one last time at the stone we jammed into the ground to mark Cecily's grave. "Are Ruta and the other Guard cats still here?" "Yep. Them and all of ours," he says, and I almost smile at the way he references our group of friends. "I don't know if they're going back to the peak tomorrow or if they're going to tell Greer about us, but for now they're here." "Well, yeah. Some things are more important than war." I barely knew Cecily, but a lump rises in my throat. Lucifer is busy pushing snow out from underneath the boughs of a bush and doesn't notice. "Come on, it'll be safe under here." Safe. What is safe? There are wolves in the canyon and eagles looking for carrion in the skies, and heartbreak waits in every passing shadow. Thorn Mountain wants to strip me of everything I have. How long before it takes me, too? "I won't be able to sleep," I say. "If you want to, you might want to join the others." "And leave you alone?" Lucifer says, like the idea never crossed his mind. "Besides, I won't be sleeping either." "I don't want to think about it," I blurt. "Cecily's death." Lucifer doesn't tell me that I'm horrible or insist that we do, which are both things I almost wish he did, because I feel like I'm being terribly self-obsessed. "Let's talk about something else, then." I hesitate, instantly second guessing myself. "If you want to--" "Everly, it's fine. I don't want to think about it either." "Right." Silence falls between us. There are a million thoughts zooming around my head, but they all die as soon as they reach the tip of my tongue. Some are too painful, others too light-hearted for the situation. I just want Lucifer to be okay. But I can't think of a single way to make that happen. "When we get to the peak," Lucifer says abruptly, in a toneless voice that betrays no emotion and serves as an uncanny reminder of when we first met, "please control your killer instincts and leave Greer to me." "You blame her," I say, just to get it out there, "for her daughter's death." "Cecily made mistakes. So did I, countless ones, unforgivable ones. But Greer has yanked us around since we were kits, making us into what she wanted us to be. And what she's done to the Triad, to the cats of this mountain . . . It would be about revenge, I think, if it wasn't already so much about justice that there's no room for anger. She has to be stopped." "Yeah." I tap my paw against Lucifer's chest, where his heart is. "It's the superhero inside you that won't let her go on. Got to save them all." "We will." "I'm glad you said that, because sometimes I think, what if we can't? They need us, all those cats, even the Snow Guard. I want to help them." "We will," he repeats. "You believe it, and I believe it." I blink. "What if it's not enough?" "Having faith together, in the same thing, makes us ten times stronger." I actually smile, for the first time in what feels like forever. "And faith in each other," I say gently, "when we can't have faith in ourselves." I bow my head against his, and lean into him. It's impossible to say who's holding up who, just the simple knowledge that I need him and maybe he needs me too. After a while, he says, "I have an idea. For what we should talk about." "What?" "We should plan our attack on the peak." Suddenly he's all business, a total soldier, his blue eyes like ice. I nod; I feel it too, to an extent, the need to do something to right the wrongs. "Do you think Ruta and Turner and the others will be on our side?" "They might blame us for what happened to Cecily and Britta." I wince; I forgot about Britta till now. "Or they might want to stop that kind of stuff from happening again." "Then we could stage a ploy. Greer doesn't know what happened yet." I stare at him. "Do you think she'll care? About Cecily?" "I honestly don't. At least, not the way a mother would. But I think she has something planned. It can't be a coincidence, DiAngelo being so close and making straight for us the instant we returned." "But how could Greer affect that?" I say. "Maybe Cecily had something to do with it." "She was . . . leading DiAngelo to us?" Lucifer's eyes darken. "I don't know anymore. I don't want to believe that of her. But I'm not exactly objective in my viewpoint; I can't help but want to blame Greer for everything." "I don't think Cecily was trying to hurt us, either. I think that even if Greer had an ulterior motive, she used Cecily, who honestly thought she was just patrolling and ran into her mother's enemies." "Right, okay. Greer would at least want to know how whatever her plan was ended up going. So we could send Ruta in to fill Greer in, and have her try to mobilize the Triad for a rebellion." "You really think the Clans will rise up against Greer?" "Why not?" "Because it's really hard to shake off what you've known for your entire life." "Even if it's misery?" "Especially if it's misery. Climbing out of a valley is always harder than falling down a mountain." A sigh escapes the white tom. "You're right." "Like usual," I mumble, and the slightest grin tugs at his mouth. "I think I'm going to go to sleep." I tense as the thought of being all alone looms up in front of me. I manage to croak, "Good night," without sounding too disjointed, but with every silent second that passes, the urge to shake Lucifer and make him stay with me grows and grows. Finally, I give in to the other urge, the urge to succumb to the sadness and the guilt. I can be strong for Lucifer for as long as he needs me, but by myself it's another story. "Everly?" Again. It's like he knows right where the edge is, and always manages to be there to catch me before I stumble over. "You're asleep." "I am not." His voice is heavy and warm with sleep, and I want to fold myself into the murmur of it and never leave. A pause. Then he says, "You're crying." "I am not." But my voice is shaky with tears. "I know this question has endless answers, but what is wrong?" "I could have saved her," I breathe. "Cecily jumped for the ledge. If I'd been quicker, bigger, stronger, I could have caught her." "Oh, Everly. Listen to me." I turn away from Lucifer, burying my face in my paws. "Hey, Everly, just listen, okay? The ledge was crumbling. You would have fallen too, if you'd stepped an inch closer." "I should have tried!" I all but shout. "How can I live with myself now?" "You couldn't have saved her. And if you had . . . if something had happened to you, I couldn't . . ." Lucifer trails off. Our gazes hook. A strange feeling courses through me. Not just the warmth and solidarity of being partners and best friends, but something else. Something bizarre and irrational and uncontained, the feeling of being willing to fight and protect, but also willing to lie and cheat and steal, anything to keep him safe. I blink, taken aback. What? "If we're going to infiltrate the peak, we better get some sleep. Come on. Things are easier together with you," Lucifer says, pulling me in. The words fall off his lips gently, but they hit my heart like boulders, shaking me at my core. Safe. What is safe? Safe is being with Lucifer, I realize. After trying for so long to brighten everyone's lives and be like sunshine, I have finally found my own light for when things get dark around me. I open my eyes and allow myself one last look at his sleeping form, eyes tightly shut, one paw thrown around me, his cheek pressed to mine. The moonlight glitters on his fur, on the silver scars that run through the white pelt and mar the print of his muscles against his skin -- yet each scar, each mark of pain, is a reminder of what he's overcome and of who he is, and I want to memorize every piece of him. A soft wind stirs the fine fur on his face, and he shifts in his sleep, his scent washing over me as his head nestles into the spot where my neck and shoulder meet. Sleep has cloaked him in vulnerability and innocence; the sight of his peaceful face makes me want to defend him from any nightmares, both in living and dreaming. I rest my head on his and wrap my paws around him as our heartbeats fall into sync. My heart clenches fiercely, painfully, and with a desperate intensity, I realize that I love him.
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