(Trigger Warning; This chapter contains themes that some might find upsetting.) 

When I come to, I'm on the couch and for a moment, I drift back to those first days where Haryek is strewn over me in the throws of passion. A void of time thrown out of it's steady march, a piece gone missing. 

My eyes lock on the figures over the mantel, the one porcelain vase capturing my eye just as it had that night. My vision blurs as the room swirls in slow pools of consciousness and distorted reality where I'm stuck in purgatory. My body had been unhinged from my reality, it was difficult to separate reality from what was near drunken visions of the past and future. 

A choked sob catches me off guard, pain hitting my chest like the steady gong of a church bell. The clock calls the time of my death, over and over, yet I remain by some tether that refuses to release. My time here was not done, despite my body attempting to leave. 

My life, tied to his. 

Voices drift in and out of my consciousness as the thrum of the concert goes on just behind the walls. 

As he'd always said, life would go on without him, yet it felt like mine was being shredded from my very soul. Falling off the couch, I land on my stomach, nearly knocking myself back into oblivion as the dull thump of my body resounds in my skull. Groaning, I roll myself up into a ball, trying to tether myself. 

"Nic." The voice is so distant. "Nic."

"Randy." I beg, nearly breathless. A strike shouldn't have done this to me, I'd been knocked out before, but this was a whole new experience. Was this what it was like to be disassembled? Did it feel like this for him, too?

It hits me like an electric shock. My hands clutch the man's shirt as he says my name again, pulling me into a sitting position as my head swirls. A light flashes in front of my eyes and I jerk my head away, fighting through the wave of emotions. 

"Why did you hit him so hard?"

"He was going mad. We're lucky he's even still here with Randy gone."

This man wasn't Randy, despite the familiar feel of him, the scent was all wrong.

Instinctively my hand clutches my stomach, what if... no, for sure if there were any chance, this would have crushed it. 

"Damn it, Tonic." I nearly whimper, blinking away the haze. "I thought-"Stopping myself, I inhale sharply with a strangled sob. My emotions, my wolf, my soul, all threatening to drive me insane as I struggle to hold on.

"Sorry, Nic. We can't find him." He doesn't dare hold me, knowing my wolf wouldn't allow it. I focus on the scream building in my chest, holding it back as I sit, pressing my back against the couch and collasping my hands in my lap with a vacant stare towards the empty fireplace. Those little figurines, gathering dust, taunting me.

Sorry. 

Everyone was sorry. 

"Where's Randy? Cas?" My voice sounds foreign, my eyes reddened and hazey, my body trembling. "Something. There must be something we can do, anything, Tonic please. I can't-"

The fact that I still existed, my mind twinges and I flinch as I struggle to my feet, scrambling to stand and stumbling drunkenly as the room swirls in this half existence. "Darrius." It comes out before I can stop myself, he could be holding me here just as he had for Verando.

"Nic you're out of your mind, you need to get it together before you go charging off again." Tonic's voice sounds too much like Verando's, I shove him away from me. His hand captures my wrist and I snarl at him, gripping his shirt, yanking him down to my height. 

"I need-" Baring my teeth at him, hair standing on edge, I was a mother separated from his mate, from his pup. "Darrius." I manage, raising my voice as if somehow they might be hiding him from me. Blood seeps from the corner of my mouth, a steady drip that rolls down my chin, my body was failing. 

Calling him to me, it's Landon who grips my shoulders now, pulling me away from Tonic. He was so much taller than I remember him being, I meet him with no hostility. Landon was one of the good guys, one of the purists, he'd never wronged us.

With a sharp smack, he slaps me across the face and I stare at him wild-eyed. While I'm stunned, it helps me collect myself.

"Sorry, but... I've always wanted to do that and you look like you needed it."

"It's alright." I manage, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, only to curse under my breath at the blood. "Darrius, Landon I need Darrius. I have to tell him I'm sorry. It's not his fault, it's not.. he couldn't have.." Gripping him, I search those green eyes, knowing the answer before he even speaks. "Landon-" My voice cracks and he clutches me tightly. 

The calm energy helps me slow my breathing. Those eyes keep my own, he helps me mouth the words. "We've got to find Randy and Cas. Something has to have happened, something drastic. Did they say anything, or give you any indication of where they might be going?" Flinching as I attempting to think, slip my arms out of his hands.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I try and think through the fog. "Going? We had an argument but Randy said he was going to go get a drink.. he's probably wrapped around some-" My stomach flips, and I nearly vomit as I clutch the man a little tighter and he struggles to hold me up. It hurts to much to think about, there was one version of the man I loved left and he hardly knew me. 

"A little help?" He begs Tonic who grips my arm, I wrap my arm around my stomach, my legs feel weak and I lean on Tonic for help as I attempt to get my emotions under control. 

"We've been studying the timeline, well, K and I-"

Tonic rolls his eyes and I pull my lips together sympathetically at his need to explain everything. "Don't be an ass, Tonic."

"Sudden changes." Landon corrects and clears his throat. "If Verando disappeared suddenly then that means.. something is going to happen to affect the future... now. Cas changed, Kestrel stopped existing... so for Verando to not exist-"

Something must happen or already had. Xaiver was gone, he went with Verando. That would mean he wasn't there to sire the child.

"Are you telling me Verando is actually dead?" My voice is small, hardly audible. I press my hand to my stomach, closing my eyes tightly as I feel Tonic's eyes on me. 

Landon motions for me to sit, I feel the sweep of his arm, but I refuse. If I sit, I might not get back up. "I'm telling you that we might have a very small window to stop this from happening. We don't know how this works, Nic, all we can do is try. We have as many of Echo's people as we can looking for them, Tiberius is trying to keep the crowd in a trance state."

"Darrius is guiding Legardo but he's so young, I think he's mostly just enjoying being outside and we can't rely on him actually knowing where he's going. He's quiet but he's going to be ok, Nic. If you have any idea where Randy and Cas might have gone?" Tonic keeps electrocuting me with his voice, he sounds to much like his father. 

I shake my head, over and over, how would I know? Verando was so different from the younger version of himself, I felt like I hardly knew the youth. He would be where ever there was liquor, women, drugs, running a hand through my hair I shut my eyes as I try and think through the fog. "Check wherever there's women or liquor, I need to clear my head. I'll see if I can track him. If he's running, small groups will be easier to find him." 

Slipping away from them both, I stumble my way into the kitchen to splash cold water on my face. 

He was so hurt by me, so upset with what I'd said to him, once more the tears spill over and I wrap my arms around me as I lean over the counter and threaten to allow myself to vanish into nothing.  I'd love to be nothing, I wanted to be nothing, for I was missing the other half of me.

 The wolf was going dim, giving up on me, giving up on happiness. My soul mate had been struck from this plane, but that flicker kept me planted here. 

Randy had to still be alive but for how long? Was he kidnapped, taken, running, changing the timeline with his own stubborn nature?

Verando, at his lowest, didn't drink or fornicate. When the darkness was overwhelming him, he at times would try to find something to comfort himself. Someone he trusted, somewhere he could climb out of the darkness one foothold at a time. But, there was also times when the self loathing became smothering. I remember one of the nights briefly, where he'd told me he'd tried to end it, but found it difficult to get past the wolf. 

Slipping through the house, I open my bedroom door, expecting to find him there only I see nothing besides a novel dropped precariously as if the person reading it had been surprised, forgetting it there in their haste. "Where are you?" I murmur, capturing the pillow off the bed to bring it to my nose. "You'd find me silly, holding my stomach as if I had a womb... as if I could be carrying a child. I need you here to tell me I'm ridiculous."

The scent is only a hint, perhaps an indicator that we were running out of time. Verando liked to be up high, he liked to see everything around him, to prevent from being ambushed. The roof would be to open, most likely he would have found a tree or a ledge maybe. I exit the house, overwhelmed by the noise and the bodys swaying in their trance state. I knew he wasn't here, because I couldn't smell either Caspian. 

A part of me worried, what if he decided to take vengeance? To stop time? My options were limited with the vastness of the forest, I follow the only trail he might find familiar, the one he and his future self had cleared. Everything in me says to call out, to beg him to answer me, but that would only chase him further away if he were trying to stay hidden. 

My nose twitches, I tilt my head up, appreciating the last glimpses of light as the sun threatened to slide behind the beautiful blueing mountains. The light mist glimpsing between the peaks, bringing a smokey haze rolling towards us with an evening fog. It truly was beautiful. If there was a place to die, I might appreciate that place being here. Relecting across the river, a gorgeous painting from gods brush, someone might think this was a sign everything would be ok. 

But, I knew better than to sacrifice my sanity to such hope. I hear the slow drip, touching my lip, I suspect it was coming from me only to find that it was coming from above. I would have missed him, if not for the last flicker of light, the gray hair catching the sun in a way that makes it almost look blond with the lasting light. 

Cursing under my breath, I climb up the tree, blood staining my hands from some obvious injury. My mind races, did someone attack him, did he get into a fight, yet when I get to his side my heart sinks when I see that it's self inflicted. The full lower lip pale, his skin clammy from the fatiguing human form. A single cut from the elbow across the forearm in a lazy, messy line. The knife was still in his hand, though he seemed to have lost consciousness. The blood still trickling from the wound, I quickly unfasten my belt to tie it off. 

"Randy. Randy, can you hear me?"

Was this where I couldn't save him? Checking his pulse, the heart beat is faint, taking in his scent I'm shocked to find I don't smell alcohol on him though he could have just diluted his own scent with the blood loss.  Wrapping the belt around his arm, he feels so limp and fragile in my hands. 

The dark passenger he'd talked about, something he'd never been able to escape, was I the one that had pushed him to the brink? Pulling the belt tight, I pick up his arm, smearing away the blood to look at the wound, zagging across his fore arm. It was deep, but unknowledgeable. I'd only learned what Adriam had been able to teach me. 

I lift his wrist, running my tongue over the wound as much as I could, but the artery would need be repaired. Flinching, he grits his teeth as I shred the bottom of my shirt, bunching it up to put over the wound, wrapping the rest of my belt around it in some makeshift bandage. "Stop." he murmurs. 

"I'm not going to let you die, asshole." I snap, cursing at already soaked shirt scrap. "Why did you do this?"

"Fuck off." He spits, to weak to pull away. 

"If you weren't dying, I would-" What? What would I possibly do? Hug him, hold him, smack him? Wish a harsh sob, I yank my shirt off, shredding it in half and wrapping it around the crook of his elbow twice before tying it off tightly. "You actually die. You die, Randy. You fucking die."

"Thats kind of the point." He manages, slurred from the exhaustion, voice hardly above a murmur. I note he's looking at me, those light eyes locked on mine. The long hair tangled with the stress of constantly stroking, the slow rise and fall of his chest coupled with a tremble. "How did you find me?"

He hadn't left a note, not indication to where he was going, he didn't want to be found. I hold pressure over the bandage, praying for the bleeding to stop. "Are you cold?"

The shivering had me worried, I was losing him. In war, I'd seen people die, I'd watch the life leave their eyes and I knew the signs. "You look scared." He murmurs, the dark circles under his eyes make me wonder if this version of him didn't get much sleep either. 

I reach to stroke his cheek with my thumb, much as he doesn't want to, he seems to enjoy the touch of my hand. "We're really high up." I whisper back. 

"Are you always so perceptive?"

I shake my head with a small smile. "No, normally that's your job, but I can take over for the moment." He's cold to the touch, sighing as I brush his cheek. Why didn't I spend my time looking at him, drinking him in? "You've always liked being petted."

Wrinkling his nose at me, I can't help but smirk at the defiance. "Why is it taking so long to die?"

I was doing everything in my power to stop it but he was fighting me, I look under my fingers, seeing the shirt was trying to soak through. Shutting my eyes tightly, I look down to see if I could carry him down the tree. If he would hold on, if he would go willingly, then it would be possible. "Why are you doing this?" I finally manage, trying not to make this about myself, trying not to make this anymore difficult than it had to be. 

"Sorry to ruin your party, but you found me, remember?" He blinks slowly, with a soft exhale. "I don't want to be tasked with making your perfect future."

What would that even mean? There was no task, there was just the simplicity of continuing on the way he was supposed to. It seemed to be the fault with the future, knowing was almost worse than wondering. "It's not worth it to even try?" I respond, hardly audible, brushing his hair out of his face. 

Was a life with me really so terrible?

"What if... my survival.. is the reason everyone dies? My sister, Adriam, Victor, Marisol. Is happiness worth so much death? I cause the uprising, if I'm not there, at least everyone else stands a chance." 

I check his pulse again, no better but no worse. I needed to get him down from here, I needed to get him back to the house where we could work on him. He was upset, feeling at the end of his rope, but trying to rationalize with him in this state didn't normally work. I wasn't his person, his buffer, meeting his gaze. "You give yourself way to much credit, that one man can change the universe so completely. Someone writes a book about you and you think you're some unstoppable dictator...." 

Sighing, I check the soaked through bandage. How much blood had he lost? "Verando. I'm not asking you to find me again, if that's not what you want, but I'm asking you to not let me be the reason you end it this way. We can erase your memory, or we can keep it... and with this knowledge, you can do whatever you want but gods, don't choose this. Not today, not tonight."

"Now who's giving himself to much credit... you're like a plague. Why do you care so much?" he grips my hand, stopping me from touching him. 

"I love you. I need to carry you back and I can't do that if you're going to fight me. You can be mad at me, run from me, glare at me, but baby, I'm determined to take you back to that house if you want me to or not. I'm not leaving you here, I'm not giving up." Slipping my wrist out of his hand, I offer him my own. "Please. Come back."