The so-called angels, as I'd identified them seconds ago were just ordinary men who'd pledged to be on Ivan's side. Ivan's father looked genuinely shocked but quickly regained his composure and steadied the gun to face my mother once more. My instinct was to bat the gun out of his hand and it distracted him for a split second that would cost him and save a life.

A man tackled him onto the ground before he had the chance to pull the trigger. They both crashed onto the ground and I turned and ran away from them before Ivan's father shot the man and turned to me once more. My mind was in a haze, but somehow my body was still working. Blindly running now, I suddenly felt a hand clasp my wrist. I was just about to shake it off before I realized who it was by the familiar shivers that went up my arm. I turned in his arms to face Mikhail, who had a few tears dripping down his face as he pulled me into a desperate hug and buried his face into my neck with evident joy and relief. His hand gently traced over my hair to comfort me as he clung to me for dear life like he was afraid I'd slip away. He was so desperate, so worried. For some reason I couldn't muster the same emotion. There was relief that decreased my burden slightly but that numbness still existed. It was like something had irrevocably shattered moments ago, something I'd never noticed but had always been there. A light of some kind that this day had blown out, and something new had emerged.

Now I just felt empty and cold and I didn't know how to fight it as it slowly took over my mind. Mikhail drew back and traced his finger across the line of my cheekbone with relief before taking my hand in his once again. Why wasn't I feeling overwhelming joy and relief that he was here, alive and safe in front of me once more? For some reason I wanted to shake off his hold. My hands were tainted with an innocent's blood and he was pure. I didn't deserve this touch.

"We need to get out of here. Ivan's helping them fight," he said to me. Sure enough, I saw Ivan's form weave through his father's men with effortless grace and skill I'd seen the first time we'd met. For a second I was taken back to that moment once again. What I'd give to be frozen in that moment forever? To be happy and young? To be just an ordinary couple? For a second I couldn't help but think how different things would be if I'd never spoken to them in the first place. Perhaps I would have never found love, but was love really worth what I was feeling now? My chilled heart and senseless veins that carried the blood of a dead, beating heart?

Ivan's face was a brutal mask of cold rage and wrath as he fought not to defend, but to hurt for all the pain they'd caused him. He was a demon unleashed and his fire could burn this room to cinders. It couldn't warm my frigidity though. Revenge, hatred and anger didn't call to me anymore.

"Alexei's over there." Mikhail pointed him out in the corner of the room. Alexei was standing there with a gun in his hand as he tried to detect exactly what was happening around him. His face was a mask of confusion as he looked rapidly left to right and kept the gun steadily in front of him. Mikhail grabbed my hand and we weaved through the crowd to get to him. His hand tightened on the trigger as we got nearer but Mikhail shouted before he shot a bullet at us.

I wouldn't have minded if he had shot.

God what was wrong with me? What had happened back there? Why did I feel like I was having an out of body experience as I glanced at my two boys, who I'd thought I'd lost and almost crumpled over just this morning? My heart wasn't feeling anything. I was drowning. I was drowning and not even Mikhail could see it.

"Roe let's go. We need to get you to a hospital." Alexei grabbed my hand this time and I let him yank me forward. I didn't have any fight to resist. We were almost outside when I heard a female scream.

I'd recognize that voice anywhere and it broke through whatever spell I'd been under. I felt like I'd been asleep and someone had jolted me awake with a bolt of lightening. I almost screamed and gasped as a thousand emotions flew through my heart and I almost doubled over.

Fear had my heart pumping once again and pain, agony, and more pain raced through my heart as I spun around in the direction of the scream. I wanted to scream, shout, rage and weep until I could drown in my tears as I watched it all unravel in slow motion.

And saw a woman with blue eyes collapse to the ground.

Time seemed to have stopped only around me. Everyone else continued to fight, and more and more men fell to the ground. Not even the two boys had heard that scream that had pierced through my soul but they knew something was wrong. In an instance, they were at my side.

"Roe. Roe darling tell me what's wrong?" Alexei's hands were holding my face as he probed me for answers. His worry and concern were justified but I couldn't care less at this moment. My mother. My mother had screamed like she was about to die.

She couldn't be dead. She was fine. She was still alive. I could find her. I could save her. I tore myself from Alexei's grasp and ran in the direction I'd seen her collapse in praying against hope that I wasn't too late.

I felt my knees give out at the horrid sight that greeted me. She was lying there, pale and gaunt in a pool of her own blood that came from her heart. Something like a scream tore out of me and tears I didn't think I'd ever shed again were pouring down my face once more.

I'd grieve. I'd grieve harder than I'd ever done before until there was nothing left for me to grieve about, no tears left to shed, and no heart to produce grief in the first place.

I crawled forward on my hands and knees until I was right beside her. I should have saved her, should have chosen her like I'd told her I always would.

I expected her eyes to be the same as I'd seen them before, full of anger towards me for not saving her when I should have.

But there was understanding in those blue eyes. There was kindness in the gesture as she leaned up slowly and traced a hand over my face. I pulled her head into my lap as I held my breath. She wasn't gone just yet. I could still save her. I turned to scream for help but she pulled my face back to face her and shook her head. She'd already given up.

I began to cry in earnest now. My heart, my throat was burning with tears I still held back because I wanted to see her in these final moments without the tears blocking my vision. I curved my spine over hers as the weight of grief and guilt pressed down on my back. Shots continued to ring around my and through my haze of tears, I saw Ivan fending people away from me knowing it was the only thing he could offer me in this moment.

My heart was going to explode. It was stretched too tight.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," I sobbed. I buried my face into her neck and shook in an effort to hold on to anything I had left as I felt her hand gently mat down my hair. My mother. She was dying in front of my eyes and I couldn't do anything to save her. I needed her in this world with me. I begged, pleaded with anyone to save her, to keep her here. She was my anchor, my everything.

I'd slip into oblivion without her at my side. I'd already put a foot into it just moments before.

"I'm sorry too for all I put you through," she exhaled. I was rapidly shaking my head back and forth as I withdrew to look at her. She didn't need to apologize. I understood. It was me that needed to beg, grovel at her feet for what I'd done and it still wouldn't be enough. I'd done this to her. I'd condemned an innocent for the so-called greater good? What meaning did the greater good have when my mother lying in a pool of her own blood would forever haunt me? My voice came out scratchy, high-pitched and broken.

"Please, please don't leave me. Please I'll do anything. I love you. I love you so much. God please don't do this to me." Each word came out fainter and fainter as she slipped further away from me. That strain on my heart increased and I gasped as physical pain shot through me. Memories passed through my mind in flashes of images, a family dinner with her, dad, grandpa for Christmas, my mom cooking dinner while whistling to the tune of our radio set, my parents and I curled up on the couch watching a movie, the camping trips we took sometimes, the night where we lost everything.

And the coffee we'd shared that would have been a new beginning. She'd finally gotten everything she'd wanted. This wasn't fair. She'd found love. She'd found happiness. Why give it to her only to tear it away so soon? How cruel could this world be?

"You have to hold on for Robert, for me, for yourself. Mom please I'll get help. I can try," I began to plead with her but she hushed me with a finger to my lips. A faint smile crossed her face like she'd found peace of some sort. She looked like an angel. She was slipping away from me.

"You're so beautiful." Of course that was what she would say in her final moments. She must have seen the slight hurt flash across my face.

"You're beautiful as in you're kind, forgiving, generous to a fault. And you love more than anyone I've ever seen. You loved me when I gave you nothing to love. How? Why?" She was crying to now, and bit her lip to fend off death for a few more moments so she could say words that were long overdue. I placed my hand over hers, which now cupped my face with affection she'd never shown me before.

"You're my mother. You were there for me when no else was. You were in a bad place but you were still a good person. How, how could I not love you?" Her face crumpled with a mixture of emotion, sadness, pain and joy. We should have had this conversation years ago, not here, not now, not when she was on the verge of death. Her hand wrapped itself around my body and she pulled me down into a hug. Her lips hovered near my ear and yet, I could still barely hear them. They came out breathy but powerful, like they were the last words she had energy for and she wanted to make them count.

"I love you. I think I always have. I just never knew." Her hold on me slackened as the last word slipped off her tongue. My soul shattered into a million jagged fragments as death finally claimed my mother. Pain like I'd never known before had my body shaking with it as I placed a hand over my heart. She loved me. After all these years, after all this time, she'd finally realized it. She'd given the one thing I'd always wanted, as her last words. This world was so cruel as to show me a glimpse of that life we could have gotten only to take it away. It was a fitting punishment for what I'd done. A sob choked out of me followed by many more.

It was like someone was slowly carving it out of my chest. The tightness in my chest was becoming too much to bear. I was screaming now, as image after image flowed through my mind and pain wrapped its merciless hands around my heart. This was too much. I couldn't breath, couldn't move away from her. I'd lost her. I'd lost everything I'd always had to hold on to. My constant, my mother, my anchor. She was lying dead in a pool of her own blood and it was all my fault.

"Bring her back. Bring her back." I was screaming at whoever held me in their arms now. They were saying something, screaming it but I couldn't understand them. They started pulling me away from her and I pushed them away in earnest. No, she had to come back. She loved me.

"Please. Please God please. I can't." I was screaming it and finally the pressure in my chest became too much, the pain became too much. Something snapped in that moment within me that I knew was irreparable and I let out one final plea before succumbing to the darkness that called to my tortured soul with soothing hands. 

This chapter took an extra day to put up. I'm sorry for the delay. I just wanted to convey a lot in it and it was definitely a very important chapter. 

I really have no words at this point. That was hard to write but I have a feeling the next chapter is going to be harder. Just comment down below and let me know how you felt about this chapter and don't forget to vote. I'll be uploading soon.

Love

-ASH