Viola wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and glared down at him as she gritted out, "If I leave this place, I am leaving with you. I have lived as a coward all my life and turned away from Ivy because of it. I will not turn away from my husband now. Do you hear me?" She said it with a resolve that left no room for argument, watching his faintly opened eyes for any response.

"Hmm...husband...I like the sound of that, honey." He said weakly, and the ghost of something like amusement in his voice even now made her chest ache in a way she couldn’t put into words. She wouldn’t let him die, and nor would she listen to any of his last instructions.

Viola smiled faintly despite everything. "If you like the sound of that and want to hear it more, don’t close your eyes again. Now help me by trying to shift." She said, rubbing his fur gently and steadily, trying to calm her anxiety enough to think clearly about what she needed to do next before it was too late.

He let out a groan that sounded like it came from somewhere deep and painful, and Viola felt her heart twist as she watched him gather whatever strength he had left and try to push himself into his human form.

It took many tries. Each one was harder than the last and each failed attempt made the fear in her chest press down a little heavier. But he finally succeeded, and the moment the shift completed the wounds that had been bad in his wolf form became something unbearable in his human one.

His cry of pain came immediately, raw and unguarded, his entire body shaking as the burning bullets worked deeper toward his organs.

"Sebastian!" She called but the only reply she got was another broken groan.

Terror had its hands around her chest but before it could pull her under, Viola got to her feet.

She didn’t think about the fact that he was naked, didn’t think about her own pain or the blood still trailing down her back, she just leaned down and pressed her lips close to his ear and whispered, "I will be right back. Don’t you dare die on me. Please don’t. I cannot lose you too." She pressed a kiss to his ear and then she straightened up and ran.

She ran with everything she had, completely numb to her own pain, her own wounds, her own exhaustion.

The only thought her mind would hold was him. If anything happened to Sebastian she would never forgive herself for bringing him here, for being the reason he was lying on the ground burning from the inside out. She had already lost enough of the people she loved. She could not lose him too.

Viola burst out of the forest and tracked down his red car parked a distance away from the tree line.

When she reached it she realized the keys weren’t in the door and she let out a desperate sound, turned and ran straight for the hotel to find them.

It cost her precious time she didn’t have.

By the time she got back to the car, unlocked it and tried to start the engine, her hands were shaking so badly she could barely grip the key properly and the back of her shirt was soaked through with blood.

The engine refused to turn over and she slammed her palm against the steering wheel, trying again and again, whispering under her breath for it to start until finally it groaned to life and she pulled out without waiting another second.

She drove back toward the forest like the world was ending behind her, not slowing down at the tree line, pushing the car directly between the trees with a single minded determination that left no room for hesitation. Thankfully the trees in that direction were spaced far enough apart that the car fit through, and she brought it to a stop directly in front of him.

When she got to him, Sebastian had gone completely still. He wasn’t moving at all and she felt her heart drop straight out of her body as she threw herself down beside him, shaking her head over and over until she leaned close and felt the faint warmth of breath still coming from him.

Still there. Barely, but still there.

"Don’t you dare go quiet on me, bastard." She gritted through her teeth, and then she positioned herself and began using every bit of strength in her body to lift him and drag him toward the car.

Her back screamed at her. Her arms burned. She didn’t stop. Nothing was going to happen to Sebastian. Nothing. Viola kept chanting it inside her head like a prayer, like if she said it enough times it would become the only possible outcome, and she pulled him forward inch by inch and refused to think about anything else until she got him into the car.

---

At the orphanage they had left behind, Miss Lara sat in her room staring down at a photograph of the orphanage children taken sixteen years ago. Many of the kids didn’t look happy in it, especially a little girl known as Serena, but her twin had a bright expression and a wide smile on her face despite the thin clothes on her tiny body in the middle of winter.

Miss Lara stared at Ivy, her favorite of all the children she had ever cared for, turning Julia’s words over and over in her mind. The fact that the woman who had come yesterday had introduced herself as Serena at the doorstep when Julia welcomed them in was a detail that had been sitting like a stone in her chest ever since.

Miss Lara had watched the gruesome deaths of many of the children who turned out to be hybrids, and she had learned over the years to live with the guilt of it, pressing it down and covering it over. But she didn’t think she could learn to live with this one, not if it turned out she had erased the wrong twin from existence. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

The thought twisted something deep and nauseating inside her. If she told herself it had been Serena she had done that to, she felt something close to ease, but the thought that it might have been Ivy, the girl she had cared for personally since infancy, made her genuinely sick to her stomach.

When the twins were brought to the orphanage, it had been easy to like Ivy because she made things easier, meanwhile the other one was hard to like and care about, because she didn’t care about anything or anyone else. She had been selfish even as a little infant, and Miss Lara had failed at every attempt to pull her close.

She didn’t make it any easier for anyone to like her in the orphanage and lived every second of her life proving she was indeed the cursed one, just like the letter that came with the twins had pointed out.

Ivy had been an easygoing little girl and Miss Lara had made sure she got adopted, but now there was a strong possibility that it wasn’t Ivy but Serena...

Miss Lara was still staring down at the photograph when she heard frantic footsteps climbing the wooden stairs. She quickly shoved the picture under her pillow just as the door of her room slammed open and Julia rushed in.

"They are coming back, Miss Lara!"

Miss Lara got to her feet and scowled. "Who is coming back?"

"Ivy and that man. I saw the car from my window driving down the road and heading back in this direction at full speed." Julia reported breathlessly, but she barely needed to finish saying it because they both heard the slamming of the closed gate and the sound of a car driving furiously into the orphanage grounds.

Miss Lara rushed to the window and looked out to see the red car skidding to a stop below, and then she turned to the panicked Julia and said firmly,

"Whatever they threaten us with, you must not say a word of the truth to them or you will find yourself served to the sea. Stick to what I have told you and—" Miss Lara’s words died in her throat as her eyes fell on the car and she watched a woman covered entirely in blood climb out of the driver’s side.