Chapter 52. Closure

I found Lucy standing at the edge of the training grounds, right where I’d seen her earlier. Here, the sounds of celebration were muffled, the laughter and music distant like a memory instead of a present moment. She stood still, facing the trees, her arms folded tightly across her chest as the breeze tugged at the hem of her sleeves.

She hadn’t moved for a while. Not even when I approached.

Not until I spoke.

“You didn’t come up earlier,” I said, quietly stepping beside her, my gaze following hers toward the forest ahead.

“I kept thinking of what I would say if you actually came back,” she replied, her voice low. “But even now, I haven’t figured it out.”

Then she turned to me, her eyes already glistening.

“You have no idea what that horror felt like, Rex. Thinking you were dead” her voice broke slightly, “I couldn’t lose someone else. Not after Maron.”

She stepped forward without warning, wrapping her arms around me in a tig