Crystal
Never in my life did I ever think I would hear Joshua Melrose say those words.
I knew this was technically a dream but it couldn't have prepared me for how dazed I still felt.
Mikey's mind space had seemed so scattered and disorganised. But just like Tristan's, it had been in a room.
With Joshua we were out in the woods under the night sky. The wind rustled the leaves and I could even hear an owl or two in the trees nearby.
I looked back at Joshua dressed in a black Silvercrest combat attire.
"You've looked better." I muttered seeing how disheveled and dirty he looked like he had been crawling through the dirt.
"Yeah you don't exactly look runway ready yourself." He spoke breezily.
I rolled my eyes but in a funny way this was a touch of normalcy I didn't know I needed after all these crazy days.
"I'm tired. Can we sit?" I asked with a hopeless sigh as I looked around the woods. "Wait, can you even be tired in a mind space?"
Joshua shrugged. "It's a mind space. A reflection of what you're feeling."
"And what are you feeling?" I asked curiously. "In fact where are you?"
I knew he must have been relatively close because it didn't feel too hard to keep our connection. And the woods... now that I looked around properly they seemed so familiar.
"Sit." Joshua spoke nodding behind me.
I turned and saw a bench had appeared.
Actually not just any bench. I recognised it from school.
It had been infamously nicknamed the Bea and Joshua 'make out' bench. Because well... you get it.
But I sat down none the less.
It was his mind space afterall. I couldn't exactly critique his decor too much.
"Okay, now will you tell me what's going on?" I asked. "Did you come in with the second wave? How are things going? We heard you made it to the camp."
Joshua looked up hopefully. "We?"
I nodded, relieved that I wouldn't have to give the Melrose twins the news that I had been dreading since we started this mission.
"I have him. I'm with Tristan right now. He's fine... well relatively fine." I thought about his foot and his sudden illness. "But I'm gonna get him back home."
Joshua looked beyond relieved. He shut his eyes and then tipped back his head looking at the sky as if saying a silent prayer.
He then opened his eyes, his face still fixed upwards.
"Things on the ground could be better." He muttered.
I knew Joshua was alpha now and hence was supposed to think more in the bigger picture but I had been expecting him to be more ecstatic and focused on his brother.
I sat up straighter and turned to watch him.
"Me - uhm, a source informed us that you had managed to infiltrate the camp. Isn't that a good thing?"
Joshua silently nodded. "I mean yes, technically speaking it is. Ornyx evacuated his home base before we could take many hostages but all in all, this is supposed to be it. They shocked us with their skill and prowess but the union had something we didn't have before, the numbers. We overwhelmed them that way by all attacking at once. Mikey and I had been messing with the idea for sometime.
We knew it was a risk to gather so many soldiers from so many territories but I knew it might also be our only chance.
One thing Ornyx never understood is that without allies, you really don't stand much of a chance in this world."
I watched Joshua. Everything he was saying was supposed to be good so why did he sound so defeated.
"Do you know where Ornyx is now? What have you done with the hostages?"
I didn't want to think about my mum or the kids I had seen in the Shadow pack camp.
It all circled back to what Meggy had said about not having much of a choice in being born a Shadow pack werewolf.
How Silvercrest and the Union should have done better to protect everyone.
Joshua was staring at his hands.
"Ornyx is no where to be found. Trust me, we searched. Cutting off the head of the snake doesn't work if you can't find the snake. And I want to be the one to do it." He spoke the last part fiercely.
I tentatively placed my hand on Joshua's shoulder. I didn't know what role I played in his life right now. I mean we shared an empathy link yet still found ourselves at loggerheads so often.
But we both loved the same person fiercely. And if that's not enough to connect two people, I don't know what is.
"Maybe Ornyx has run away. Seen that he isn't winning this. Maybe the violence can finally stop." I spoke.
Joshua looked troubled. To be honest, I was too.
I had met Ornyx. I don't think he was the type to run from a fight.
"You said you needed my help." I spoke up. "What's wrong?"
He looked at me. "I -"
Joshua hesitated. He clenched his jaw. "I don't know how to count my losses on this one. We've lost so many of our own. Under my orders."
I saw the pain in his eyes.
"Where are you?" I asked. "I'll bring Tristan to you and you can -"
"I can't look myself in the mirror. Not after this." He spoke blankly.
It's then that I realised that Joshua didn't want advice or even his brother.
We were alone in this mind space of the woods.
He was relieved that he had found Tristan but I could feel what he felt?
Now what?
I think he called on me for one specific reason. Both of us had fulfilled our goals. But now we stood in limbo of what next. Of counting our losses and seeing what we ended up with and what we lost in the process.
For me, it was my mum, Roman too.
For Joshua, it was his childhood, his innocence. The battles had meant bloodshed which I'm sure he hadn't really been ready for.
Now we stood with a victory that seemed so dim it was sad and difficult to see anything after this.
I was here with him because probably for the first and last time in our lives, Joshua and I had an understanding no one could touch.
Tristan
When I woke up I was only partly aware of where I was.
It was dark but I could still tell I was in the woods. The leaves on the trees rustled with the cool air.
They blocked the sky but through the spaces I could see a scattering of stars.
When I looked forward I saw a girl with short and wild dark hair using a branch to draw on the dirt.
She looked up once she noticed my eyes were open and she smirked, quickly tossing the branch and dusting her hands.
"There he is."
I tried to move but that's when I noticed that I was laying on something soft - someone.
I carefully got up and craned my neck to see Crystal fast asleep, her mouth slightly open as she snored softly.
A smile immediately grew on my face. After being trapped in a prison with my own waste and just walls to stare out of while I festered in pain, seeing Crystal - someone I thought I would never see again.
It was a breath of fresh air.
"She's been out like a light for a while now." Meggy spoke. "Not the best soldier." She spoke with a roll of her eyes.
I slowly lifted myself off of her trying to be quiet and not wake her up.
My body was still sore and throbbing but I felt a sort of dull relief that was almost soothing.
Whatever Meggy and Roman had done must have helped.
I turned and looked at Crystal, her hair out of her face revealing her soft but angular features. She looked as peaceful as you could I suppose sleeping on a tree.
Her eyebrows seemed furrowed slightly as if something in her sleep might have been bothering her.
I wanted to get up but one look at my foot made me realise that I wasn't the same. That my capabilities and abilities had been partially severed.
Meggy caught me staring at the place where my left foot had been.
"If it makes you feel any better, you would have died instantly if they hadn't cut it off." She spoke.
I swallowed hard almost feeling like I was reliving the moment the spear had dug into my foot, the burning of the poison seeping into my blood.
"Doesn't make me feel better." I muttered.
I should have killed Ornyx. I should have been more vicious.
Just like him.
"You're alive anyway so I'd throw in a prayer of gratitude if I were you, Alpha." Meggy spoke sarcastically.
I looked at Crystal not believing that she was even here right now. I was so sure I would never see her again.
In that room, alone, I was sure I was going to die slowly and painfully.
"I never got the whole mate thing." Meggy spoke.
I turned to look at her. She was watching Crystal almost wistfully.
I adjusted my legs so that I was seated completely upright now, my back against the thick roots.
"You not believing in soulmates? Shocker." I muttered as I adjusted the jacket that had been covering me on Crystal.
"Haha." She suddenly became serious. "I just meant with how we were always trained to believe we were meant for Ornyx and Shadow pack service. It's always been crazy to believe someone could be put there living, meant for you. As in, what are the odds?"
I stared at Crystal, my heart swelling at the thought of her and me meeting the way we did.
A Melrose and a Van Cliffe.
It seemed like a not too funny joke. Meggy was right in a way. What are the odds?
***
"You look better."
Crystal was finally up and walked up to me, kneeling to check my wounds.
I had stayed up keeping watch after convincing Meggy to get some rest as well.
Now the sun shone bright in the sky, like the day was just as normal as any.
I thought of how not so long ago we were all prisoners but now we were in the middle of nowhere but we were free and alive and that was enough.
I could tell Meggy and Crystal felt the same way.
Neither of us seemed to want to talk much.
Trauma I guess but the relief was definitely evident.
We rationed out some water. Crystal knelt next to me insisting on helping to feed me.
Roman still hadn't returned and I could tell Crystal was worried even though she didn't voice it out.
Probably worried about what I might think.
But I guess seeing as to how Roman had helped us both escape, maybe I could try to overlook my intense dislike for the guy.
Meggy had gotten up saying she would check around the perimeter for him incase he was close by.
That left Crystal and I. She snuggled next to me in silence.
I could tell there was a lot on her mind that she wouldn't say right now.
Same way I don't think I could ever talk about what had happened in that room.
"It's all over now." I whispered.
I don't know why I was so sure but I was.
Wars were never this short and - given this was Ornyx - this easy.
But something in me told me that we were safe. At least for now.
And here in the middle of no where we could afford to have a false sense of security.
I didn't want to think about what lay outside. Like how Crystal had mentioned she had come on this trip with Raphael and an entire team and now they were just missing.
There would be carnage and collateral damage that I just wasn't ready to account for.
Crystal's hand gently rubbed my chest.
"Do you wonder where we go from here?" She finally spoke, her voice cutting through the silence in a gentle reality check.
Well the answer was obvious wasn't it?
"We go home." I spoke.
"And Meggy... and Roman?" She asked.
I didn't even want to comment on her faith that Roman was still out there alive somehow.
"They can't just waltz into Woodfell, Tristan. And even if you granted them special admittance, do you really think they'll ever be accepted?"
I was quiet for sometime.
No.
My pack wouldn't want to hear anything about how I had gotten help from the very pack that had terrorised them.
"Where do werewolves go when they don't have a pack?" Crystal continued. "Do they live among the humans? Isn't a pack a werewolf's strength?"
I didn't have the energy to answer Crystal's questions because I knew they stemmed from something way deeper.
I knew the answer wouldn't be simple. It would require strength and a change so radical it was bound to meet a lot of opposition.
"What would you have me do?" I asked quietly.
Crystal looked up at me. "Now you care about my opinion?" She asked playfully.
I shrugged. "I think you've earned it."
She rolled her eyes but cracked a small smile.
She then turned to look ahead getting serious. "I don't know." She admitted.
"What about you?" I whispered not realising how scared I had been of the question until now. "Where do you think you belong after all this?"
Crystal was quiet. Part of me knew why I needed to ask this question even though the other part wanted it buried away.
I finally had Crystal. Against all odds we had fought our way back to each other and she was in my arms. It seemed crazy that I would even consider asking such a question.
But if I knew anything, if I had learnt anything, it was that you didn't keep love caged.
You didn't covet it or force it.
You just let it be.
"There's something I need to tell you." Crystal finally spoke. "About Bridget."
My heart stopped. I didn't need her to say it.
"Not now." I begged gently.
Even though I had severed the mind link when I had been captured, I could still feel her absence. Maybe it was an alpha thing or something to do with her bond.
Not addressing the ache didn't make it hurt any less but I was still determined to control it.
I didn't want to break down. Not here. Not yet.
My best friend gone, my mentor too...
I just wanted to be here with Crystal and not think about all that.
Crystal held onto my hand and pushed herself closer to me.
"Okay." Was all she said swallowing whatever else might have been trying to fight it's way out.
So we just sat in silence. Because after this, we'd be forced to address a reality neither of us were strong enough to face right now.