Wicked Chase

♛ Chapter Thirty-Four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Voices flittered back and forth and I didn't open my eyes but the first thing my brain acknowledged was that I didn't have a nightmare. I had merely fainted. But why had I fainted? Memories of recent events flooded my mind and almost instantly I jolted awake, sitting upright with my eyes wide open. The suddenness of my action caused me to be temporarily blinded by the bright light and I had to blink several times to get rid of the red lights that danced in front of my eyes.

No no no. It didn't happen, Genevieve. You are hallucinating.

The voice in my head did little to nothing to calm my frantic nerves. Alastair's eyes widened at my awakening and before he could even react, I clambered up into a sitting position and gripped his forearms, faintly aware that my fingernails were digging into his hard muscle from my sudden aggression as I looked at him frantically and asked, "where's my mother? Tell me she's okay, tell me we've won, tell me nothing happened to my mother."

His stormy grey eyes softened at my panicked state and instead of him trying to calm me down like I expected him to - like he would have done - he looked away from me, casting his silvery gaze elsewhere and immediately I felt my heart drop but I so badly wanted to hang onto that very last glimmer of hope that shone brilliantly within me so instead of believing his dismissal to my questions as an answer of no, I dug my fingernails deeper into his skin and hissed out through clenched teeth, "tell me... Tell me, Alastair, that none of the events in my nightmare actually happened."

Alastair Ignacio's answer was silence and I withdrew my hands, sinking into the bed that I hadn't realised I was on until that very moment. I was still in my ragged, dirty and worn out clothes but I didn't particularly care that I was in a very unclean state.

No.

"Mum..." I whispered, sinking into the comforts of the soft bed but even that didn't offer me comfort. My chest felt constricted as I felt my heart thundering violently against my ribcage, my breathing coming out short as my head moved back and forth. "No," I shook my head, my lips trembling and my heart racing, as Alastair's gaze returned back to mine, his gaze solemn and sad as they shone with fresh tears. The ache didn't subside at all. The more seconds that ticked by the more the ache grew and my body began to shake, and even as Alastair climbed into the bed and embraced me I still shook.

And then it hit me like a bullet right at my heart. My mother was dead. My mother was gone and something about the second time made it all the more worse. A sob bubbled up from my lips but once the first cry was released into the air, more followed and I kept shaking, sobs wracking through my body as tears fell over, the prickling sensation at the back of my eyes was barely registered because the ache that I was feeling - that was all the more overwhelming. I hadn't ever liked crying, in front of someone or alone, because I had always thought it to be for the weak and vulnerable even after I learnt that it wasn't but in that moment, cocooned in Alastair's arms I couldn't help but completely and utterly break down and cry like I'd never cried before.

Ugly, dry cries emitted from my mouth and soon I was thrashing against Alastair, my frustration seeping into my bones and coming out into the air with each yell I gave out. My shoulder was damp and I realised that shouting, yelling and hitting Alastair wasn't going to do anything because I wasn't the only one who was crying. He was too, just way more silently than I was and for some reason that made the ache in my heart grow all the more powerful that I felt so overwhelmed. The energy knocked right out of me and I sunk back into Alastair as both of shook with grief.

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