She knew the answer long before he spoke that one, chilling word. The word that continued to echo against the walls of her screaming mind. Gone. Her mother gone. She waited a few moments to let the realisation sink in her. Her mother was gone. Her mother was gone. No, that couldn't be true. She had to be hearing things. Her mother couldn't have left the pack - she couldn't even bring herself to accept that. "No no no," she whispered inaudibly to herself, shaking her head in disbelief. Her throat tightened as tears pricked in the corner of her eyes. This couldn't be happening. How could she turn her back on her family for a few moments and turn around to find them gone?
She should have stayed. She could have saved her mother from her illness, but no, she had to leave at the worst possible time. Now the woman was too sick to remain sane, too sick to remember who her family were, too sick to remember her own daughter was coming home to visit. No! Why couldn't she have held on until she had visited? She would have made everything better, cured her mother's illness and ensured she stayed. Why hadn't she visited sooner? She could have stopped this. Everything could be fine, just the way she felt it, but it wasn't. It was the opposite.
And then Kait had left. Oh, gods, no. Not Kaitlyn, the very sister she had always despised as a pup, the little girl she had always trampled with her green paws, the young adult she had played a silly game of tag with before her leave. This just got worse and worse. "This is all my fault," she wept, her body trembling and shuddering. Turning away from him, she added in a hoarse yet hurt voice. "I don't deserve to be here. I don't deserve to be an Agatsuma at all." And then she ran. She ran as far and fast as her limbs could carry her. She just ran, away from her fear and terror.
