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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN...
After what feels like ages, Erik finally tries to get me to stand up.
My limbs feel like lead, weighing me down. My hand rests on top of Shaw's, his skin as cold as ice, all life seeping from his corpse like the sun drawing behind a cloud. I don't know how long I've held his fingers in my own. My knees ache and my head swims. I don't know why I felt the need to touch him, why I needed to grasp his hand and watch as he died. It was quick, a fleeting moment that passed underneath my fingertips. One moment he was alive, pain burning like fire through his body, and the next, he was as cold as the icy shadows that had gripped me for so many years.
I used to think that the moment Sebastian Shaw died, I would feel a sense of relief. When his body went stiff and cold, a bright laugh would erupt from my lips. With that sound would go all of my pain. All my frustration and torment he had created.
It would all be gone.
Watching Sebastian Shaw die was nothing like I imagined. It was worse. So much worse.
I don't cry out in joy. I don't laugh and dance around. I don't sigh in relief. Something sinister crackles beneath my fingertips, a fire left untamed, and it hurts. Guilt and agony swim through my body, lighting my bones in a blaze that keeps me stuck to ground, watching the blood seep down Shaw's face.
He's dead. He's really, truly dead. And I had something to do with it. That is the part that makes my stomach lurch, causing my hands to grip the floor as I look over Shaw's dead body, my tears falling against his placid skin.
I let Erik move the coin, watched as it entered Shaw's skull and came out the other side. I closed the walls around my mind just to keep Charles' screams from entering my head. I did this, and now I'm paying for it.
Erik rests a hand on my shoulder, gripping my arm with ferocious intent. I don't fight him as he lifts me into his arms, one hand around my neck and the other under my knees. I don't look at him, I can't bear to. All I will find is revenge playing across a face already filled with so much rage. I can't look at him. Instead I bury my head into his chest, forcing my arms to wrap around his neck. Tears stain his collar, but neither Erik or I much care.
Erik looks towards the body of Shaw, and suddenly two thin wires are wrapping around the dead man's wrists. Erik lifts them up into the air, and Shaw hangs, a limp commander. It's as if he's being held up by strings, invisible, but cutting into his flesh none the less.
The puppeteer becomes the puppet.
I almost want to laugh. Instead, a shaky sob escapes my lips. Erik says nothing, only walks out of the mirrored room now a wreckage of glass and steel. He steps out into the classy lounge, Shaw dragging behind him. I rest my head against him, my eyelids brimming with tears. I feel numb, my insides churning against the barriers that keep me alive. I can't move, I can't speak, I'm too overwhelmed.
