Hadn’t she already made that choice last night, standing in a cemetery? Hadn’t she already forced him to make his choice too, standing in the brutal rain?
But last night, she’d only been concerned with how it affected them. She’d deliberately not given a thought to anything else.
Morana felt the severity of the situation, of everything she hadn’t been thinking about last night, hit her like a truck. Last night, she had been focused solely on her own emotions, guided by instinct, thinking with her heart.
It was time to get her brain out. It was time to see the picture as a whole instead of the tiny portion that concerned her. It was time to weigh these decisions. Because while she may have emotionally decided where she stood last night, in the light of the day, she couldn’t ignore how her decisions might affect everything else.
Dante was right. If she went to Tenebrae, there was no saying what her father would do. Though he’d tried to kill her himself, she knew his pride would have taken a serious beating and he would retaliate. He would probably use her leaving as a reason to declare the war the two territories had danced around for over years, possibly accusing Tristan Caine of stealing his daughter.
And that was only part of the equation. She didn’t even know how Maroni would react but from the sound of it, his would be worse than her father’s response. And with Tristan’s life on the line, with someone unknown but well-versed in computers framing him, sending her information about the Alliance and planning lord knew what else nefarious schemes, Morana could feel everything suddenly crash down over her.
Her heart started to race along with her thoughts, flashing one after the other, switching, changing, transforming before she could grasp one completely.
The burden of that responsibility started to suddenly choke her.
She didn’t want to be responsible for these people. She didn’t want to be responsible for anyone. For the first time in her life, she wanted to be utterly selfish. She wanted to be reckless. She wanted to get on the back of that bike and throw her hands to the wind. She wanted to sleep at night knowing she wouldn’t be harmed. She wanted to taste the life she’d whet on her tongue just days ago.
Her heart thumped loudly in her ears, a drop of sweat rolling down the line of her spine, her palms became clammy. Morana turned to the windows, gazing out at the view as her breathing picked up speed, spinning beyond her control, the enormity of everything crashing all around her, pulling her under.
The ability to make a choice that she’d treasured moments ago strangled her. She wanted to choose to get on the back of that bike, not in the driver’s seat. She didn’t know how to drive it, didn’t know how to control the beast, didn’t know where to guide it. And she could feel herself heading for the collision, feel the inevitability of breaking everything inside on the impact.
Her breathing went choppy.
She didn’t understand this reaction, didn’t understand her own body in that moment. It almost felt like she was outside her skin, watching it all in some sort of delayed reaction.
Black slithered around the edges of her vision.
A lead weight settled upon her chest, rendering her incapable of the simple act of breathing.
She felt the half-full mug of coffee slip away from her suddenly nerveless fingers, heard the crash of the ceramic against the floor, even felt the hot drops splatter on her bare, dangling legs.
Yet, she felt numb.
Staring at a space she couldn’t even see anymore.
Existing in a place she couldn’t feel anymore.
Rushing with the blood she couldn’t hear anymore.
Her body senseless, her mind blank, a dark, ugly feeling swallowed her whole as she thrashed against it on the inside, the outside world slipping away from her, the collision coming towards her at breakneck speed.
She heard sounds, everything a buzz around her, tried to make sense of it, tried to place the noises but failed, going under whatever was engulfing her.
Thoughts raced through her and she couldn’t catch a single one, spinning inside her own mind until she felt dizzy, her body swaying, the ugly monster trying to bite into her flesh, feed off her, make her go under.
She tried to fight it.
She thrashed.
She gnawed.
She clawed.
It still sank its fangs into her, drawing from her until the pressure on her chest felt explosive, as though she was going to snap and shatter into a million pieces, never to be put together again, those pieces of her lost forever to the inside of her own mind, to the ugliness, the blackness, the void trying to consume her like a black hole.
Physical fingers wrapped around her throat.
The monster eating her reared its head.