'One man's fall is another man's rise.' It was the moon children's truth, a truth they lived and died by but tonight, these words felt false.

Tonight, a man would fall, but no man was going to rise. The monsters already had done that.

Looking at him, the person who brought me back to the world, his face sickly thin, seeing the naked plea in his tired eyes as he placed his gaze on me, I had no hope to offer him.

'Help me,' it said. 'Save me from this.' That look he gave me just then while laying chained to the altar the soulless had built for their evil purposes.

How could I save him when I couldn't even save myself? To save others implied that you had power over your life, that you were your own master and I neither had that power nor was I master of my own destiny.

It was Leila, who determined my tomorrow. It was she who ruled over my today.

Her arm slipping away from around my shoulders, I felt her turn away from me. Not a second later, her voice summoned, "The boy is ready for you. Come out now."

The shadowy figure that emerged out of the darkness surrounding the ritual grounds slowly approached Lucas. Judging by the familiar build of the figure and its height, I knew it was the same man who appeared here every night when she called him out.

He was always the one to perform the bloody part of the job while she was the one to finish it.

Seeing him stop in front of the altar, hovering over Lucas, the need to close my eyes and press my palms against my ears overwhelming, I forced my eyes to stay open.

I had to watch and I had to see. With or without my consent she was going to make me.

"You look a bit pale, Scarlet. Do you need to sit down before he begins?" Leila asked, her voice carrying concern I knew was not real.

Averting my gaze from the man standing behind the altar so we could have a better view of what was going to occur tonight, I saw a few wildlings holding burning torches to illuminate the night.

"Don't pretend that you care, Leila," I told her watching one of the wildlings come to stand next to the pyre, ready to start it as soon as she gave the sign.

"I do care, but if you feel confident that you can stay standing and watch this, then be my guest. Do as you wish," she said, then gave a nod to the man looming over Lucas.

Watching the soulless place his hands on him, then take a grip on his shirt's fabric, stained with dirt and ripped in places, now looking more like a rag piece, "I wish you'd stop this but will you?" I snapped at her.

The creature lifted his head, two slits of red directed at me, his hands halting mid-motion, he waited for his mistress' command.

Should he stop or should he go on?

"Don't be ridiculous. This is good for you, so why will I stop it?" Leila said to me and then to him, "Just do your thing and don't mind her, Alastor. She's going to protest much tonight."

"Heartless monster," I gritted out, briefly closing my eyes as the sound of ripping clothes rang loud in the falling dusk.

"Why, thank you, Scarlet. Now, be a good girl and do what you must," she whispered to me, her hand playing with a lock of my hair as she did. "Or do you think I should tell the wildlings to start the pyre?"

She was practically asking if I was going to fail tonight. Then again, she didn't need to ask me that. She should have known by now that I couldn't do what she wanted me to do.

Shivering against her touch, I pulled away and opened my eyes to see Lucas' chest bare and ready for the soulless to plunge his hand right in. I could count his ribs under the skin now.

His face distorted with fear, his eyes turned my way, his lips moved to let out a desperate sound.

"Scarlet, please... Please, don't let them--"

The plea died on his lips the moment the soulless drove his hand into Lucas' chest and instead, a scream sounded in the night.

Not just his scream, but mine too. Because what should have been his pain was my pain too. A pain I could feel in my own chest. A hand I could feel clasping over his heart as it was mine. Why?

"Something's wrong, my lady." A voice came like an echo. A voice I knew whom it belonged to without needing to see the man speak. I could feel that voice, the vibrations of every note that tumbled out like they rained right over me. These same vibrations traveled from that hand I could feel plunged into my chest to my very heart. Pins and needles that stuck in it, tore at it.

It was the voice of the thief who wanted to steal the most precious thing I had. The only thing I had left.

"I can see that there's something wrong, Alastor. Just look at her!" Screaming. "Scarlet? Are you alright? What is it?" Worry pouring out of her lips, her face an inch from mine, her hands on my shoulders keeping me stand on shaky feet.

"She's just scared for the boy, my lady," the soulless assured her, then added, "That wasn't what I was talking about, though."

I felt her turn away from me, only her arm across my shoulders remaining with its steadying grip. "Why are you stopping now?" she snapped at him.

"There's something wrong with his soul, my lady. It doesn't feel right," he said, that sucking sensation returning once again.

'It doesn't feel right because it's my soul that you're trying to take out.' I wanted to shout but I couldn't even open my mouth to speak.

"You need to access it to determine what's the matter with it and the only way for you to do that is to continue what you've been doing, Alastor."

"Yes, my lady."

And with that acknowledged, whatever he had been doing, turned ten times more intense.

Hectic heartbeat accompanied by short and ragged breaths, the hand that squeezed my heart tight into its grasp, a sensation that felt both ice-cold and scorching as my breathing ceased and life slowly seeped out, it hurt.

It hurt so much.

It felt – hurt like... like someone was trying to pull my insides out through my very skin and flesh, and indeed, it was what the soulless was doing to me just aiming for my soul.

"Stop it. Please, stop." Whisper. Lucas' whisper in my ears as my vision blurred with adrenaline flooding my head. Red. All I could see was red.

"Please... You... are... hurting... her."

"I'd have felt it if I was hurting her, boy," an angry woman's voice shouted.

Distant. Everything was fading away and I didn't know how to stop it.

Another heartbeat. A prayer lifted to deaf ears. A plea directed towards the heartless.

A person who had no feelings. Even with the connection, she claimed we were sharing, she couldn't recognize my pain because she couldn't feel at all.

She wouldn't stop it and I didn't know how to do that myself.

Only if Oracle was here... She will know what to do.

But Oracle had been gone from the moment this started. She had told me to run and even if I hadn't followed her advice, she did follow it. She had run and she had gone away.

I had stayed to die.

"Fight..." Like an echo of a world that was far away, a voice I had heard in a dream that hadn't been a dream, in a world that was beyond this one, it came again, reaching me in that place of darkness and despair right between the soulless' shadowy fingertips.

"Fight..."

Fingers like claws striking in, trying to rip me apart, that cord I had seen connecting my soul to my bodily shell ringing like a string on a broken instrument as he tried to stretch it to his own volition.

How can I fight something this vicious, Lucas? How can I stand up against something so... evil?

Scarlet! That other voice, the one I hadn't heard for so long, coming from miles away just like it had come that other time when I had been on the brink of death, Regan's voice inside my head calling for me.

Scarlet, please. I don't know what's happening but, please, have strength, Scarlet. Fight this! Even after everything I did to him, he was still reaching out to me.

I would have cried if I could. I would have told him how guilty his words inside my head made me feel, how unfair it was that he could swallow his own pain, the one I caused him and just be there for me.

Maybe it was better that this was happening now. Maybe it was better that I was finally getting what I deserved. Once I was dead, I wouldn't be able to hurt anyone.

I would no longer keep hurting him if I was gone.

Please, my love...

His love...Didn't it matter to him that I was bad for him, that I was like poison in his life? Was he really so selfless that he would care about others more than he cared for himself, that he would care about me?

That night when he had tried to send me away so he could die for me, I had glimpsed the man he truly was, that same man I'd once thought to be a monster, then and now, I knew that all he had done had been only because he wasn't a monster, only because he wanted a future for the people he felt responsible for.

And I... the moment he had found out that I was his, he had taken responsibility for me too.

His burden to carry and protect.

I know why you did what you did and I understand, Scarlet. Like an arrow to my soul that was thrashing for freedom in the soulless' grip, these words stung and burned it.

I forgive you and I want us to have a future together. Just hold on a little longer, Scarlet. Wait for me... Stay- stay alive for me!

Anger. Pain. It would be gone if I died. He would be free.

Letting myself stop, despite every instinct, despite what felt right, despite how wrong it was to just... give up.

Please, Scarlet...

That night, I didn't know if it was then that I fell for him, earlier or maybe now, it didn't matter though because I couldn't hurt him more.

Just this once.

Stilling myself for that moment when the soulless was finally going to succeed and rip my soul out of my body, I wanted the man to do it even if everything in me was screaming not to do this.

Please, believe in me.

His love, I could feel it flowing into the damaged bond we shared, not even knowing how it was possible.

It should have been gone. The bond. His love for me. That desperation I could feel coming from the place he was, far away from this one.

It was still there. Despite all odds, he still believed in us and that simple fact changed everything.

Could I have a future with a person that others had said was not meant for me? Could we create our own destiny despite that we were bad for each other? Could we defy the Moon's plans for us and love?

Free of burdens and unconditionally.

I didn't know. I didn't share his conviction that we could do the impossible only because it felt like the right thing to do.

But what did it make me if I didn't even try? If I just gave up after learning to love again?

#A/N: I wasn't entirely sure about this chapter so I'm leaving it up to you to decide, peeps. Did you like it? Did it make you cry? How did it make you feel and what do you think about what just happened?

Thanks for reading and I hope you are enjoying the story so far!

Love,

Alsey.