Trevor woke to the sound of
screams. Instantly he realized they were coming from his bedroom.
Grabbing his sword he was there seconds later, dropping it when he realized
that there was no attacker there. Instead Kemp was sitting up, staring blindly
into space as his hands pulled at something only he could see.
“Hey, it’s all right, you’re
safe,” Trevor said quietly as he neared the bed. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
Kemp’s eyes refocused. For a
long moment he stared at Trevor before sinking back onto the pillow. “Nothing
will ever be right again,” he moaned as the memory of everything that had
happened returned. “Why didn’t you let him kill me?” He turned his agony filled
gaze towards Trevor.
Sitting on the edge of the
bed Trevor brushed a stand of hair from Kemp’s forehead. “Well, for starters,
you have too much potential. Something neither I nor you father was willing to
see wasted,” Trevor told him in a calm, practical tone of voice.
Kemp shook himself free of
Trevor’s hand to stare at the far wall. “That’s over, it’s all over. There’s no
reason to live now that…” He choked back a sob. “Now that Owen’s…Owen’s gone…oh
gods he’s really…You should have let me die too.”
“And put your father and
your family through what you’re feeling now? And of course there was always the
chance that despite his threat to your father, Khalid would have turned you
into another of his creatures the way he did Owen. Alive in name only, but dead
and insane in reality. Is that what you would have wanted?”
“Owen was not a creature!”
Kemp shouted. “He wasn’t,” he whispered.
Resting his hand on Kemp’s
shoulder Trevor replied, “In the end he was and even your love couldn’t have
saved him.”
“I don’t believe that. When
you love someone…” Kemp’s voice faded out.
“Sometimes that’s still not
enough.”
Kemp turned to glare at him.
“How would you know? You’ve never lost someone you loved.”
“I have,” Trevor replied
softly, “too many times. I know it hurts. Gut deep it hurts. Your heart becomes
an aching hole in your chest and in your mind you blame yourself that it
happened.”
“It was my fault. If I’d come back earlier. If I hadn’t let Leif drag
me away. If I’d taken Owen away from here before…before…”
“Kemp, it was not your fault. Nothing would have
stopped Khalid from taking Owen. I think you know that. He had an agenda and
Owen was part of that. If you had been here, Khalid would have taken you as
well.”
“No,” Kemp spat out, “if I
had been here he would have taken me instead and Owen would still be alive. He
only picked Owen because we were, because we loved each other. If we had run
away like we should have…”
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