All Just Glass - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [40]
Worse, Nikolas and Kristopher had allies—not just Nissa, but powerful figures like Kaleo. Even if the twins respected her decision, Kaleo had made it clear that Sarah had his protection, yet he was far less likely to care what choice she had made. Would he have joined the fight?
How many bodies would have joined hers on the floor?
She had thought she was doing the right thing. Was Nikolas correct that she had just been doing the easy thing? As he had pointed out, once she was dead, she didn’t have to make the hard decisions anymore.
“What was Kristopher’s opinion?” she asked softly. Nikolas had made it clear that his decisions after her death would not be affected by how she chose to die. Kristopher claimed to love her. What would he have done?
“He argued that we are not your keepers, and that no matter how much we want to hold on to you, whether or not you continue with this life has to be your decision.” Nikolas shook his head. “Ultimately, it is your choice to make, no matter which side of that argument each of us is on. If Jerome had not told us what you were doing, we would not have known. There will be plenty of other moments we will not know about. We will protect you, even from yourself, when we can, but the final decision to live must be yours.”
The words cut deeply. She had grown up among absolutes and duty, but Kristopher had introduced her to doubt, and decisions, and therefore freedom. He represented the opposite of all she had been raised to obey without question, so it should not have surprised her that he had been the one to argue for her right to make a decision that now horrified her.
Nikolas, on the other hand, had always been more black and white.
“And if, someday when you aren’t there, I decide not to live?” she asked.
Nikolas shrugged, his gaze going distant. “Kristopher will forgive you,” he said. “He will mourn for you. He may choose to avenge you even if your death is by your own plan, and I will follow whichever path he takes. But unlike my brother, I do not forgive easily.”
Perhaps Nikolas’s approval should not have meant so much to Sarah, but the words ate at her, feeding the shame she already felt for—
Oh, no.
“Zachary,” she said as the last moments of the fight came back to her. “I—”
“He’ll be fine,” Nikolas said swiftly, in a flat tone absent all judgment. “You didn’t kill anyone; we didn’t kill anyone.”
“Sarah?”
Kristopher’s groggy voice shocked her from her thoughts.
She reached for him and helped him sit up. She could tell the exact moment when disorientation broke in favor of memory, because his fear spiked.
“We couldn’t let you do it,” he said.
“I know,” she answered, her voice breathy through her tight throat.
She tried to help Kristopher stand, and then stumbled as a wave of dizziness nearly took her legs out from under her. Nikolas tried to catch them both, and all three of them ended up back on the floor.
“You two both need sleep,” Nikolas suggested. “Sarah, I know you slept a couple of hours earlier, but it’s well after dawn now, and healing took a lot of energy.”
Nikolas insisted on helping them up the stairs; Sarah was so tired she couldn’t even focus her thoughts enough to transport herself, and Kristopher couldn’t seem to take a step without stumbling over air. Christine looped an arm around Sarah’s waist and helped her stay standing long enough to wash her cousin’s blood from her skin before she fell into bed. Sarah vaguely recalled her having been in the room earlier, before Nikolas sent her away so she would not be a distraction.
“You should rest, too,” Sarah said to Nikolas when it became obvious that he was walking them to their rooms but was not planning on sleeping himself.
“I’ll hunt first,” he answered, reminding Sarah that while she and Kristopher had been injured, he was the one who had been drained of power. Remembering how much of Nikolas’s energy she had