Fated To Three, Betrayed By All… Until She Rose. Chapter 426: Responsibility

Leilani.

The room slled of gloom and death.

And ash.

A lot of it.

There was no fire. No smoke and definitely no ash. Just a bed standing in the middle of the room like sothing straight out of a horror movie. Beside it was a large folder, a laptop and so bottles of dicine... and on the bed was a man.

A man who was more than a friend. More than a lover and was the only thing I had close to family for the past five years.

My breath hitched in my throat when despite all the noise... and all the chaos, he still wouldn’t move an inch. Hell, he was as stiff as a statue and as cold as the glaciers in Antarctica— and I know this because I brushed my fingers over his chin, shuddering slightly when that sent chills down my spine.

"Jarek..." My voice was cold and small. It sounded like it had co from a hundred miles away. It had scratched its way right through the deepest darkest depths of my heart and wrung its way out of .

My eyes filled with tears which burned my corneas and my legs wobbled as I inched closer to his bed in fear.

"Jay..."

"Sweetcakes..." that is exactly what he would’ve said to if he wasn’t so... cold. If he wasn’t so... dead.

Dead.

That word still sounded surreal. It still felt like it had been coined out from so deep twisted dark place in my nightmares.

My knees crashed against the floor with a loud thump way before I could stop myself and my tears stread down my face, seeping into my blouse and tearing its way sowhere from deep within my soul to pour out in torrents so high, I could barely contain them.

I vaguely felt soone crouch beside but I made no attempt to see who it was. Hell, how could I even do that when I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the bed?

From Jarek...

My Jarek.

"Tell that this is a dream," I cried out, my voice hoarse from all the tightness in my chest. "Tell that this isn’t Jarek. That he isn’t dead. Tell that this is so sort of sick joke!"

At my words, the person beside wrapped his arms around my shaking body and pulled flush into his chest.

I was t with heat. The kind of comforting heat that I usually liked. But for so reason today, all it did was make furious. Guilty. Heck, I wanted to be in Jarek’s arms not Kael’s.

"Tell that this is all a lie!" I scread, my voice thundering through the extrely still room.

At my outburst, the dical professionals quietly slipped out of the room. The one who had been busy tucking his entire body into a plain blue cloth stopped, froze and took a step back away from .

My body vibrated with tremors that shook all the way to my bones and heavens, I couldn’t stop my tears from running down my face I could never.

"Leilani..." that was Caelum and sothing in his voice sounded like he was only a couple of seconds away from bursting into tears himself.

He knelt in front of , pulled out of Kael’s arms and hugged tightly, his shoulders quaking as he gently smoothened my hair over and over again desperately.

"Leilani, please stop crying..."

"Tell it isn’t true, Caelum..." I whispered into his collar, "...wake up from this horrible nightmare."

"I can’t. I can’t do that. I cannot lie to you."

I cannot lie to you was another way to say that this was true.

It ant to say that this was not a nightmare.

That Jarek was indeed dead.

That my mind hadn’t conjured up this entire thing.

The pain that lanced through at that realization was intense. My body folded into itself and a cry so loud... so raw... ripped its way right out from the very depths of my soul.

I tried to grab onto the floor but I ended up digging my nails into the tiled floor instead until I began to bleed. But I didn’t feel the pain. Not when the one in my chest was far greater. Far worse. Far more agonizing.

Suddenly, it felt as though I had forgotten how to breathe. My chest, already tight, felt even tighter. I placed both of my hands on Caelum’s shoulders and with a cry, I shoved him away from .

"Let go!" I yelled,

"Lani..."

"I said, let go!" I scread louder and when he begrudgingly let go of , I slowly rose to my feet, ignoring the tears streaming down my face as I went straight for the bed.

And Jarek was still there.

Still pale. With his eyes still closed.

I knelt beside him for a mont, unable to bring myself to say the words I wanted to. My hands clutched at his stiff cold ones and my breath hitched when instead of warmth, I was t with ice.

"How could you do this to ?" I sobbed, "...how could you leave ? And most of all, why would you leave without saying goodbye?"

"Because he was afraid,"

That voice ca from behind , and whipping my head around, my nostrils flared in irritation when I saw his lawyer standing there with a folder pressed against his chest and his swollen eyes focusing on everything but my face.

I hissed; "What? What do you an?"

"He was scared that he would never have been able to say goodbye to you, and that’s why he decided that you ought not to be in the room as at the ti when he was ready to take his last breath."

I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond to that.

Hell, how could I?

So I simply lowered my head, squeezed my eyes shut and continued to cry.

"He never wanted you to get hurt. He never wanted to see you suffer and that is why he could never tell you of the kind of pain he was in... nor the fact that he knew he would never have survived that hit."

My breath hitched again and this ti, when a cry slipped out of my mouth, I let it.

"Stop..."

"It is also why he’s left you with a ssage and a responsibility." The lawyer continued, as if unaware of the amount of pain I was in.

I whipped my head around. "Responsibility? What responsibility?"

"He willed his company to you. You’re now the CEO of Frostclaw.Inc."