As I get closer to her room, I reach into my pocket to grab her key, just to find it empty. What the hell? I must have dropped it in my hurry to get dressed. At least that’s what I keep telling myself, but with each step, there’s this strange awareness that pricks my senses.
I look up and find Ren standing at the end of the corridor. That’s when I know something is really wrong.
“She’s gone,” he says. I’m not sure I’m hearing him, so I rush toward him.
“What?” I ask, my tongue feeling heavy.
“She left. Got on the helicopter and left.”
Nothing that he’s saying makes sense. Why would she leave? She wouldn’t, would she? There is no place safer than Corium for her. The second she leaves, she becomes fair game to every single one of her father’s enemies.
“Why? What do you mean? When?” The questions come out in a haze. Ren just stares at me blankly, like he’s shut down his emotions.
When he doesn’t answer me, I start toward the elevator, pressing the button, willing it to move faster. I can feel Ren behind me, his movements mirror my own, but he doesn’t seem to care. It’s almost like…
“What’s going on, Ren? Why did she leave? What did she say to you?” The questions come out in a roar this time, the elevator dings, and the doors open.
I rush out into the cold, the wind whipping past me. The organ in my chest skips a beat, and something I haven’t ever felt before cuts through me. It’s an emotion I can’t quite pinpoint, and I imagine it’s what they call heartache. I look up into the sky and see the helicopter heading away from us. Fuck. I have to figure out how to get it to circle around and come back.
“Make them turn around! She can’t leave here, or she’ll fucking die,” I yell. Ren still appears to be in a trance.
“She got on the helicopter by herself. Obviously, she’d rather die than be here.”
I don’t believe that for a second. The reason she got on that helicopter at all has everything to do with me.
I did this to her. I pushed her to leave.
Heartache becomes horror when the helicopter starts to descend toward the forest. What is the pilot doing? Why is he… the question doesn’t even finish forming in my mind. Not when the helicopter disappears into the forest, and a plume of fire and smoke appears a moment later.
My hands start to tremble, and I take a step forward like I might be able to help in some way.
“I’m sorry,” Ren whispers. “I’m sorry it had to be this way.” It takes me a moment to digest what he’s said, and I turn to face him, staring into his vacant eyes, which are focused on the fire off in the distance.
“What did you do?” My voice cracks, all my emotions giving way. I don’t even have to think about it. She’s dead. There is no way she survived a crash like that, yet I somehow hold on to the hope that she did because the thought of her dying because of me kills me.
When Ren finally looks at me and replies, my entire world flips upside down. “What you couldn’t.”
* * *