15. Fifteen Arthur

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FIFTEEN: ARTHUR

M y arms swung around my head as I whirled my blade and slashed at the apple tree. A long branch stove off, scraping along my cheek as it crashed down. Unripe apples rolled over the ground. I whipped around and stabbed at the opposite tree, sending down another shower of fruit. Apples thudded and bounced off my body, but I didn't notice any of the blows.

Corbin's dead, and it's all my fault.

I had one fucking job in this coven – fight the baddies, hold them back, make sure no one got hurt. And because I'd failed at that, the way I failed at everything, my best friend was dead and everyone hated me and nothing was going to be right ever again.

Their accusing faces followed me everywhere. They kept looking at me, because they blamed me. Every glance and glare was an accusation. Rowan's wide sad eyes, Maeve's cold gaze, teetering on the edge of darkness. Flynn's serious face, looking at me like he sees something I don't. All of them hating me because I killed Corbin. I was right behind him. I should have swept in and saved him, but I'd thought he could handle himself.

And Blake… the way his expression never changed, never altered…

My fingers tightened around the hilt of my sword as I thought of what he'd said yesterday, that'd he'd kept Maeve from seeing part of her dream that might have helped us. And then he and Rowan had gone into her dream without her permission… that had to have been his idea. He probably compelled Rowan to agree. Red spots appeared in my vision and I swung my sword, imagining the tree was Blake fucking Beckett.

My next blow shook the tree with such force my blade sliced halfway through the trunk. Apples dropped from the branch above. One hit my temple, splashing pain enough my face.

Not good enough. I deserved so much more.

The red dots swam in my eyes. I swung my sword around and slashed the blade along my arm, wrist to elbow. A line of blood appeared across my skin, splitting my grey tattoos open like Moses parting the red sea. Only the red in this case was my blood.

I watched, detached, as a river of blood flowed from the wound, drenching my arm.

My body shuddered as I experienced a clarion sense of wrongness , even as a cloudy euphoria settled over my mind. There wasn't any pain. How could there be no pain when there was so much blood?

So much blood.

The red spots in front of my eyes swelled, bleeding into each other. I collapsed in the grass, wrapping my fingers around my arm, trying to hold the wound closed. My fingers slid over my skick skin, unable to find purchase.

What do you think, you bellend? A voice screamed inside my head. That you'd be able to hold that wound closed?

Too much blood.

My ears rang, a screaming siren that blocked out the voice. The red in my eyes retreated, giving way to a cool greyness that grew in intensity as a white light rushed toward me.

"Oh, shite," I murmured, as the world spun away from me, and I became one with the white light.