I was never alone. Someone was with me twenty-four/seven. I was aware of them on a peripheral level, knew that they kept me alive and functioning, and updated on what was happening.
But nothing really registered on a conscious level. I didn't care what they said. Every inch of me was raw—and it was a rawness that was both physical and emotional.
My body was battered and bruised, and my sight, like my hearing and my voice, had been damaged. It would recover, because I was half wolf and self-healing was a part of my heritage, but it would take time.
It could have taken an eternity and I doubted it would matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing could matter. Not when I failed to save my own mother.
Part of me wanted to die, to just walk away from the heartache and the pain that burned through every fiber.
It would be easy enough to do. I could slip away to the gray fields, let my body waste away and maybe find a peace in death that would not be possible in life.
It was tempting.
But if I did that, then I would never know who killed her, or why.
And I would never taste the sweetness of revenge.
It was that need, more than anything, that eventually dragged me back to the realm of full awareness.
Which didn't mean the days that followed became any clearer or that the pain eased. My body might have started healing itself, but my heart was broken, and no amount of consoling from my second family or my friends could ever heal that.
Mom was gone.
End of story—at least in this life, this time, and with me.
I could only hope that we'd meet again, somewhere down the track in another lifetime—because we at least still had that. Azriel had assured me that her soul had moved on, and that she could be reborn. Unlike little Hanna, who was gone forever. But at least I'd given her vengeance.
Mine would come.