And I need you.

Not in the ways to survive,

but in the ways

that makes life

worth living.

~JmStorm

I resurface from my haze.

The events all came back to me.

Slowly.

Clearly.

I turned to the side to confirm what I had seen and heard.

Alto.

Alto sat there, watching me.

"Its....its over?"

He sighs, a deep sigh of relief, and nods.

"Yes."

"You saved me."

He leans forward and grabs my hand, pressing them to the skin of his face.

"I didn't."

He cries at his words.

I cling to his hands as he bows his head.

"I didn't get to you in time."

I start to shake as I take in his meaning.

"You did. You saved me."

"A month."

He growls out the word, "A month. Of tracking. Searching, hunting. It shouldn't have taken that long. It shouldn't have-," his sobs cut off his words as reaches and painfully clings to his chest.

"When I showed up at the academy. And you weren't there. You and Jasmine. Both of you gone. Taken. I-,"

"Me and Jasmine?"

I pause and look up at Alto, "What happened to Yasmine?"

He sighs, "They didn't take her."

He gives a humorless laugh at his words, "Their first mistake. Jasmine's partner, Derek, when he found out."

A dark look crosses Alto's eyes.

"Derek doesn't care about Jasmine."

Alto laughs at that, "We both tore the world apart, looking for you two."

I shudder at his words.

"And you found us."

"Jasmine was in a cell. For the most part she was left alone. She said she was only taken out once," Alto's eyes flash to me, "to use to threaten you."

He pauses suddenly, "I'm sorry Fayette. We don't have to talk about this now. Another time. When the wound isn't fresh-,"

"No."

He hesitates, his dark eyes looking at me.

I missed those dark eyes.

That darkness that evoked him.

Not something to fear.

But instead a thing to provide warmth.

Comfort.

"I need to know."

He hesitates before nodding.

"My father told me what he did. How he commanded you. We both were played Fayette. Right into his trap."

"His name."

Alto pauses as I stare up at him with desperate eyes, "What is his name?"

He shakes his head, "No one knows. I don't think he has one."

The bleakness of it hits me.

No name.

There was no name for the devil.

The face would forever remain just that within my mind- a face.

"Is he...."

"Dead."

I can't process it.

I can't absorb the fact that my captor is no more.

He still would forever remain nameless.

And forever remain alive within my mind.

"We got some information out of him. He knew the end was there for him. So he told us what he wanted. He wanted us to know the brilliance of his plan. And he wanted us to know what he did to you,-"

Alto's voice catches as he hangs in head in silent horror.

"Fayette."

His voice cracks.

I reached out and touched his hair.

He was real.

Real.

We stayed in silence.

I couldn't even begin to describe to him my horror.

My horror of what I had gone through.

"Alto."

He raises his head.

"Do you remember, when I asked you that question...months ago...what would you do if I died?"

Alto shuddered as he took in my question.

"Please don't fayette."

His voice came out as a soft growl.

"You can't hunt anyone down anymore Alto. It's me. My body is killing me."

He looks up- his dark eyes flashing gold as he struggles to maintain control of himself.

"Do you know what that man told me."

I shake my head, weary at the sudden change in topic.

"He said he sent human hybrids, men who were transformed to wolves- to kill me when I was a pup."

I can't breath as this new information sinks in.

"He wanted to test them, to see how powerful they were. And my mother defended me. And died."

I stare at Alto, fresh pain surfacing in my chest.

Our love story.

How dark it had become.

"I kill the people I love."

I jerk at that, "No Alto," I reach for him but he whimpers.

The sound has me stopping to take in a gasp of air.

It sounded like a dying animal.

It sounded like a dying wolf.

"Fayette. I've lived in a world where I thought you were dead. I lived in that horror for a month."

His eyes flash up to me as he slowly, crawls to my side, climbing onto the bed with me as he holds me there, taking in my scent, my warmth, my presence.

"Don't ask me to live a lifetime like that- without you."

(I did allude to what had happened to Alto's mother in ch. 8)