“I can’t!” You whimpered, your panic filling you from the inside out.

“You can,” Benny tried soothing you by keeping his voice low and calm, provide you with the needed confidence and comfort that he himself might not fully possess anymore. You’d escaped the facility together, broken and bruised but alive and he was not about to let you down now. No, Benny would make sure you would get away from this hell. 

The riverbank was muddy, the water behind it cold and running fast towards the corner where it thundered and galloped like a herd of wild horses. It was loud and watching all the white foam gather on top of the water was scary. It was a desperate sight, mirroring your feelings as you watched how it moved and rolled over rocks that looked sharp like stakes. 

“You can do it, baby,” The nickname was new, but you didn’t question it since it provided a much needed warmth inside your cold body. He looked at you, holding his large hands on your shoulders. “You can do anything. It’s just a quick trip across the water, a small dip and then it’s done. I’ll be right behind you, okay? And once we are there?” He pointed towards the opposite bank, your eyes following his lead. 

The bank looked like the sweetest little holiday spot and you wanted to giggle when the thought occurred to you. Your inner panic had to be making you delirious. Benny’s gravely voice in your ear made you almost believe in his words. Made you want to see daydreams of spending a holiday with him. 

“Once we are there, we are going to make it. Trust me, baby, you can and you will do this.”

“It looks so wide and deep,” You muttered, eyeing the water with trepidation. Swimming had never been your strongest suit and with the depleted energy reserves you had, you were seriously questioning your ability to make it out. Benny’s hand and long fingers turned your chin and face softly to meet your eyes. His mouth - the one made of sin and all the promises mama always told you to stay wary of - lifted to a small smile and you’d would have been a total goner in any other setting than this one. 

He was just as dirty and bloody as you felt. Matted hair and torn clothing included. His blue eyes had a trace of the same panic you felt in your gut but he seemed also calm, collected. Like he’d done this before, an escape this crazy while using desperate measures. 

“I believe in you.” He whispered, the sound caressing you like the sweetest honey dripping down your spine. You held his gaze, trying to read between the lines and shadows blocking you but didn’t get far when the angry yelling of people chasing you cut through the woods and your hazy mind. 

Your eyes widened, the earlier panic Benny had been able to diminish minutely rearing its ugly head again. You whimpered, trying to pull yourself in to make yourself as small as possible. 

He cursed and you saw how the wall slammed shut in the blue orbs. He turned his head to the side, gauging the distance between you and them. Not happy with the results judging by the clenched jaw, Benny turned back to you and pulled you in for a rough hug. His body pressed against you, letting you feel each of his muscles poised and ready for an attack. 

“When you get to the bank, you run, baby. You run as fast as you can and don’t look back. No matter what you do, you don’t look back.” His words burned bright in your chest as realization dawned on you. You wiggled out of his grasp, fresh set of tears streaming down your cheeks, muddying the dirty streaks even more. 

“Benny, no! NO!” You shook your head, hoping to plead and beg, but Benny just stood there, the wall of muscle and determination impossible to move. 

“Go. Fuck, baby, GO!” He pointed you towards the water. You hesitated, trying to decide between going and staying behind with him. It was clear this was his plan, staying put and fighting the captors all alone. Die a hero’s death, while becoming a villain to you when he left you all alone. You shook your head, trying to grab a hold of his hand to pull Benny with you, but he deflected it quickly. 

“GO NOW!” Benny roared over the blood rushing in your ears, the other voices growing closer and more angry as the first of the captors caught sight of you two. When you didn’t budge, he moved fast. He placed his hand between your shoulder blades and spoke quietly, placing every good thing still inside him on his tone. “You can do this. I believe in you.”   

With those parting words, Benny steered you to the edge of the water and into it. He went in with you, until his knees were submerged before suddenly twisting around, shielding you with his body. “I’ll see you soon, baby,” He winked over his shoulder, some of that made-up playfulness finding its way to his eyes and you let out a watery chuckle at it. He had nothing but his busted up knuckles and legs, but something in his tone told him he wasn’t about to go down without a fight. 

Isidro’s hand gripped the mud as the shame overwhelmed him, flowing from his eyes as a sob escaped his throat. His vision blurred with thick tears that dripped from his nose, leaving craters of his uncontested soul that had once been scattered like the sands of the sea, suddenly coagulating in front of him again only to mock him.

The hand that curled around his stomach drifted to his chest as the sobs heaved out of him—as if his last breath would be as violent as his life—but no matter how hard he pushed toward death, willed it, wanted it, he could feel it move just out of reach again.

He could see his mother in her chair, looking out onto the fields, waiting in vain as her last sun set on the Windover harbor.

“I just want to go home!” he roared, pounding his fist into the ground as his chest heaved. He bent down, resting his head as his whole body shook from overwhelm and years’ worth of exhaustion.

“I c-can’t… do this anymore,” he muttered to himself as he sunk lower and tried to breathe. It involuntarily pulsed over his dry lips as the pain in his abdomen seared.

The crying had left his face feeling raw and his chest empty. The prick of the pillar once again poked his shoulder blades, the muddy grass sprung up in a patch around him, and the dagger materialized in his palm.

“Why am I still alive?”

His mom turned her face toward him, pushing herself from the chair as the house drifted closer. She took the last step off the stoop, then gracefully kneeled in front of Isidro. Her grey eyes met his own as she touched his face; her fingertips felt like a breath.

“I’ve d-done terrible things, Ma.” He confessed through shaking lips.

It was the first time her smile faded as sadness reached her. “I know what you’ve done, and if death is what you need…” she reached out her other hand. “Come.”

Need?

The word shook him.

Being a good son, he needed to learn to take care of the crops and the animals and memorize the recipes for his mother’s extracts. To be a man, he needed to work and smile when he felt like he was drowning.

His parents needed a strong son, his siblings a responsible brother. Jacobsen needed a pliable killer more afraid of him than of death, and Isidro needed to be all of those things to survive.

“Isidro!”

A voice tickled his ear. He looked around briefly, but returned to his mother when he couldn’t find it’s source; to her hand still outstretched as he felt the knife in his stomach fade then resurface again.

He should take her hand. It was the obvious choice; the one he had been waiting for, and even fighting for, for so long. It would give his victims and their families justice, real justice, not the kind that left them as empty as his Clinside grave. He deserved to die.

“Your father thought the same.” His mother spoke, as if having read his thoughts.

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Isidro sniffed, his voice low and tired. “He had us.”

Katherine smiled, warm and loving. With it, the temperature rose, calming the chill on Isidro’s skin.

“And you have her.”

The same disembodied voice came again, this time on a warm wind.

“You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Isidro looked around. Theodora. She- she came? She found him? The warmth branched over him, to his eyes, and suddenly he was crying again. Relief and longing mixed with pangs of regret at his grateful and desperate need for it to be true fell in large, silent tears, onto the ground.

The ground?

Suddenly, the heavy weight of life crept over him like a cloak, and his eyes widened with fear.

“What if I can’t be the person she needs? What if she-”

“Isidro Isaac Pulver, listen to me.”

He locked eyes with Katherine again as the ethereal faded with reality, and her visage thinned among the swampy background.

“She’s not here because she needs you, son.”

Isidro’s breath hitched, and his eyesight burned as his left eye faded to black, along with a radiating pain from his abdomen that crawled into his bleeding hands, making him tremble.

“I’m sor-sorry I couldn’t say goo-dbye.”

Katherine smiled bright, and her hand squeezed his, easing the burn of his mutilated fingers.

“It was never goodbye.”

Then the light of the fireplace overwhelmed her, shoving into Isidro’s chest. He grit his teeth as the pain kick-start his heart, and he opened his eye to a bright sky and the passing of whispering willows.

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