The water dripped down his face, plinking in the porcelain basin of the sink. Nothing helped. No amount of water or pain or distraction stopped the images seared into his eyelids.

            “Augie.”

            He growled, splashing another handful of water into his face, feeling the sting as it hit his eyes. Relishing in it.

            “Don’t leave. Stay with me. Please.”

            In pure frustration, he reeled back an arm and punched the mirror. The glass shattered beneath his unmerciful fist. His knuckles split, blood trickling between the cracks of his fingers, winding down his palm, but he didn’t care. Hewas alive.

            Ellie Armstrong was not.

            A soft knock on the door interrupted his self-pitying thoughts. He grunted out a dismissive response, but the knob turned anyway. He should have locked it.

            Jessica stepped inside, worry creasing her tired face. Everybody was so damn tired, lately. “Are you okay?” she asked, voice meek. It was a stupid question. How could he be okay? Six months should have been enough time to get over somebody. A girl who shouldn’t have meant anything.

            But that was impossible.

            Because Ellie meant everything.

            August stared down at his busted knuckles, delighting in the pain. “What do you think?”

            She tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear, surveying the broken mirror. “I think you really loved her, and it’s perfectly normal to be heartbroken.”

            His head shook madly from side to side. “No, I . . . no. It’s been six months. She was nothing, I—”

            “Oh, bullshit.”

            He snapped his lips shut, shoulders dropping beneath the weight of reality; of her words.

            Jessica stepped brusquely to his side, yanking his injured hand open without compassion. He winced as she studied the damage. “Boys are so stupid,” she muttered, forcing his hand beneath the spray of sink water. “It doesn’t matter if you prove your masculinity to an inanimate object, dumbass. It won’t mock back.”

            August said nothing, clenching his teeth together so hard his jaw clicked.

            “I mean, really,” she continued, ruthlessly scrubbing the blood clean and then grabbing some ointment. “Is it seriously that hard to pull your head of your ass and just admit you have a weakness? Is that so horrible?”

            He sighed harshly, tugging his hand away. “I’ll do it, before you yank my hand off,” he muttered, grabbing gauze to wrap around his wound with considerably more finesse.

            She glared at him, planting hands on her hips. “Ellie was my friend, too,” she choked out, and August could hear the emotion clogging her voice. “But she’s gone. Has been for six months.”

            “Shut up.”

            Jessica gasped, taken aback by the harshness of her friend and former lover’s voice. “Excuse me?”

            He ripped the gauze and threw it on the counter. “I said shut up, Jessica. Don’t talk about her. Don’t.”

            An annoyed tic started off in her eyebrow. “So, what? You don’t acknowledge her; don’t acknowledge the pain? It happened, August! She’s dead!”

            “No!”

            August started to shake, the trembling starting in his fingers and toes and then spreading to the rest of his limbs. It was a helpless kind of shake. One laden with denial he had suppressed for six months. But all of it finally crashed into him.

            Ellie was gone.

            His Ellie was gone.

            The dreams he had at night, of her beautiful smile and innocent eyes and soft lips, and the way her body was made perfect to fit against his, were just that; dreams. He woke from them every night a little emptier and deader inside than before.

            And how was he supposed to live with that? With the guilt, at not being there to protect her?

            His father always said to save what mattered most in the world.

            He failed.

            And after six months of holding back tears and the truth, it all gushed out in an un-August-like torrent of emotion. Sagging to the floor, dropping his face in his hands, he cried.

            Sobbed.

            Because it just wasn’t fair.

            Jessica knelt by him, pressing his head into her chest, moving her hand soothingly through his hair. “It’s okay, August,” she murmured. “Just let it out. You’ve held everything in for too long.”

            “It’s . . . not . . . okay,” he gasped, shuddering. “She’s . . . dead.”

            “I know, but Angel is still alive, and we have to stop her.”

            “I . . . can’t.”

            “Why not?”

            “Need . . . her. Jessica, I . . . I need her.”

            She nodded. “It’s only natural you feel that way, August. You two were very close. You felt a lot.”

            “No.” He pushed back, looking at her through filmy eyes. “Something happened.”

            At this Jessica seemed genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”

            Embarrassed, August rubbed vigorously at his cheeks, wiping away the evidence of his loss of control. “The night before I left, we . . . uh, we slept together. It was so . . . so intense, I guess. Something happened. Like she put something in me.”

            Jessica’s face screwed up. “Are we talking STD?”

            “Gross! No. I—I’m not really sure. I can’t understand it. I guess it’s nothing.”

            Except, it couldn’t be nothing. He needed her there, with him, more than anything. He couldn’t ever remember missing anybody so bad. And didn’t that make him some kind of monster?

            Missing a girl he knew for roughly a year, more than his family.

            This was what his life had come to.

            He pulled himself to his feet, rolling his head around on his shoulders. “So why did you come in here? You must have a reason.”

            Jessica nodded, expression turning grim. “The prisoner is in the interrogation room.”

            August’s body clenched. “He’s ready to talk?”

            “Blake seems to think so.”

            “Excellent.” He moved toward the door, but Jessica called him back.

            “Wait,” she said.

            He threw a glance over his shoulder.

            “Just be cool,” she said, scratching awkwardly at her arm. “He’s gonna say some stuff, and . . . you’re not going to like it.”

            August cracked his knuckles, ignoring the sting of the injured ones. “It happens,” he said. “Just like sometimes, I beat people to within an inch of their life when they don’t tell me what I want to know.”

            Jessica only groaned.

~*~

After abandoning his mission overseas (which he was a legitimate fugitive from the law for, now), August set up shop with Blake and Jessica in a large sprawl of land in Missouri. This was for a couple reasons, the top one being his hometown was in Missouri, and the irrational part that hoped Ellie might show up there one day refused to let him go anywhere else.

            But the place was perfect; a deserted town that they occupied, slowly pulling in other troops to unite for the cause against Angel and her twisted Prophets. It was training ground, now. A place to learn and master skills and build an army, because that was what they were doing. Somehow, August was supposed to lead them. But he wasn’t looking for leadership points. All he wanted was revenge.

            Sweet and simple.

            The entire town was off the grid—or so he hoped, because the Prophets had an irritating way of getting around everything—but so far there had been no unwanted interruptions. And they’d been carrying on for six months. Little skirmishes between his men and Prophets popped up around the area, but nothing big. August knew everything was building up to something. He just didn’t know what, and he didn’t know when.

            This captured Prophet currently chained to the cellar of the main house where August, Blake, Jessica, and a couple other authority figures had their rooms, however, was going to answer a few questions.

            He may have a busted knuckle, but he had done a whole helluva lot of damage with worse.

            Blake stood guard at the door, arms folded across his chest, when August showed up. Their eyes met and they shared a nod. Since Ellie’s death Blake had been particularly driven as well. August wasn’t a fool. He knew of the other man’s attraction toward her, but learned to push the jealousy aside. After all, Ellie was gone, and allies were sparse.

            “August,” Blake said, rubbing for a moment at his eyes. They were set upon bags that resembled bruises.

            “Blake,” August replied shortly, hands stuck in his pockets. “He’s in there?”

            “Yep. All snark and no bite. We picked the perfect douchebag for you to beat up.”

            “Excellent.”

            August shook out his limbs, putting on his best neutral face, before walking by Blake and into the interrogation room.

            There was a small, naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling, directly over the table. It was potentially dangerous should anyone decide to touch it, but also a possible torture device should he feel like getting creative.

            And, oh, how he liked to get creative.

            The Prophet seated in the chair with his hands chained to the table was a man only a couple years older than August, with a gap-toothed grin and greasy black hair. Despicable.

            “Well, well,” the man wheezed. “August Masterson himself has finally graced me with his presence.”

            There was no amount of bullshit August was willing to handle. “Shut your face and show a little respect, and maybe you’ll keep all those crooked teeth in your mouth.”

            The man (unwisely) barked disbelieving laughter. “You? Funny. I’m not scared of you.”

            August chuckled darkly, flexing his knuckles. Blood spotted the white gauze around them, capping the effect he was going for. “You should be. You really should be.”

            The Prophet grinned.

            August braced his palms flat on the table, leaning over in a casually threatening manner. “What’s your name?”

            “Jedidiah,” the man replied easily, willingly, clearly seeing August as nothing more than a balloon full of hot air. His mistake.

            “Okay, Jed.” August straightened, pacing the area in front of the table. “Where’s your bitch ring-leader?”

            Jed’s eye twitched. “Angel will not be found.”

            “Oh, I assure you, she will be. And I will gladly stick the knife in her heart when I do.”

            “She cannot be killed.”

            His blood boiled. “Everybody and everything can die. Nothing is invincible.”

            Jed watched August for a long time, thoughtfully, before his eyes widened and something clicked into place. “Shit,” he whispered. “I know why you’re blowin’ a hissy fit.” A dangerous gleam sparkled in his eye.

            August said nothing, staring at him with a hard gaze.

            “Yeah, you mad about that Ellie girl,” Jed continued, striking the one nerve he didn’t dare even approach. August’s entire body coiled tight, shoulders rigid, like a cobra ready to strike. All of this went unbeknownst to the Prophet, who was too busy goading him on.

            “Man, you should have seen how they killed her. All bloody and slow and painful.”

            You son of a bitch. “Don’t talk about her.”

            “But, why? I even got to sample the bitch before they offed her. A feisty thing, let me tell you.”

            August knew he was lying, and only trying to rev his engines, but either way, it worked. Calmly, he walked toward the sneering Prophet, staring down with all the indifference in the world. He flexed the knuckles of his bad hand, feeling a twinge of pain, and thought, What the hell. They were already busted.

            He drove his fist into the Prophet’s face and felt the crack of bone beneath his fist.

            “You don’t . . . talk about her . . . you son . . . of a bitch,” August growled with each sickening punch to the man’s face. Blood spattered the floor and his shirt, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was cause damage. The lust in his blood for every damned soul who caused Ellie harm was raging. They all had a designated seat in hell.

August was the reaper, and he was coming to collect.

            For sure, he would have killed the man, had Blake not burst through the room and forced him away.

            “Let me go!” August shouted, adrenaline still pumping through his system.

            “Chill out, man!” Blake bit back. “One more hit and you’ll kill him!”

            “I don’t care! That bastard should die!”

            Some way or another, Blake managed to get August out of the interrogation room and into the quieter hall. He shoved him up against a wall, frowning deeply. “Dude. In case you didn’t remember, we need that guy for intelligence purposes. Thanks to you, he probably has cerebral hemorrhaging.”

            Somehow, August just couldn’t find it in him to care. “Then I’ll go out and pick another douchey Prophet off the street. We have options.”

            “Yes, however, if you fail to remember, the last five potential candidates all met an untimely fate at your hands.”

            Oh, August remembered. Hard not to. But they all asked for it. All of them.

            Suddenly Blake sighed, sounding beyond exhausted. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Listen, man. I know it was six months to this day that El—that she died. It sucks. Killing everybody in sight won’t make that pain go away.”

            August turned from him, unwilling to offer a response. How did he know? He knew nothing about what he was going through. About the nightmares that assaulted him every night and the guilty pain that ripped through him every morning. When he woke and didn’t feel her against him. When he stared at the ceiling, all alone, and remembered he had failed.

            “August.”

            “Let me do my thing, and you do yours,” he said to Blake. “If you’re so keen on getting information out of the damn idiot, don’t ask me to do it.”

            And with that, he strode down the hall and up the stairs, out of sight.

********

Alright! My NaNo book is FINISHED (which i may possibly post later ) and so I can focus on this! So, welcome to the third and final installment of the Ellie Armstrong Trilogy! Love you guys, and I hope you enjoy the ride! :D

-EJ