I'll Meet You There

	She could go home now. This was all over and once she got Max, they could both go home together like this was a dream. It hadn’t been, but they could get through the pain together. They had promised to get out, but when they hadn’t come to her for awhile, she gathered an army to storm Caulder’s lab. Ethan, a boy she met at the hospital, was happy to help her.

	However, when Fate found the door open to where Max was, she got a horrible sinking feeling. They were just testing Max, right…? Her free paw rested on the open door, the other currently holding a knife, and after a long moment of hesitation, she entered the room only to wish that she hadn’t.

	Max was there. They were on a surgical table with one arm free, reaching out her way… but they weren’t moving. They would never move again, covered in swelled bullet ant bites and their leg basically ripped open to the point where it was still dripping blood even though the rest of the blood had already dried.

	And with exactly six bullet holes in their head, Fate’s knife clattered to the ground as her breathing became erratic. Her breaths soon became whimpers, and then sobs as tears started to slide down her cheeks. Slowly, but surely, she made her way to the surgical table and despite her height, and the exhaustion already setting in, she climbed up onto it to be with Max.

	They were her best friend. They went so far, they threw her, and they saved her life only to give up theirs. She was still alive. Max was dead. They promised her… They promised her that they would be together again. Those had been their last words, hadn’t they?

	/I’ll meet you there./

	They didn’t even get to die peacefully. They didn’t get the death they deserved, although no one deserved to die. They were only 17… That was Ethan’s age and even with an eye gone, he was still living. Fate didn’t even try to keep her emotions in check as she lost it over Max’s dead body, bawling her eyes out as she screamed for them.

	She just wanted them back. She wanted to meet them there. She wanted to go home with them.

	What was she supposed to tell the others? Fate wasn’t leaving Max here, they didn’t deserve that… They were going to come with her. They were going to get buried in the rose field in the forest that Ethan had showed her. Max deserved to feel loved even after their life was over.

	… But Caulder didn’t deserve anything. Caulder did this. Caulder brought them here, hurt them, separated them, and killed Max.

	Ethan’s hand gently rested on Fate’s back. He had been quiet, giving her time to grieve for Max, but staying here wasn’t going to anyone any good.

	“Fate, we…” Ethan started, his stomach churning as he stared down at Max. This kid was his age and had one of the worst deaths possible, just for protecting their friend. “We have to go; staying any longer isn’t going to do any of us any good…” He paused for a moment. “… I can carry them. You can kill Caulder. Let’s leave and never look back, we can… We can bury them in the rose field.”

	After several moments, Fate finally sat up straight and responded in a small nod. Her breathing was back to normal and her tears had stopped, but she was staring down at Max with her cheeks sticky and wet from her previous tears.

	“… Please… Be gentle with them…” She begged Ethan, in which he nodded. He whispered a small “I promise” before going around to the other side of the surgical bed to free and pick up the small teenage human, and Fate didn’t dare to look away just yet.

	Ethan gently grabbed Max and lifted them, an arm around their delicate shoulders and under their knees attached to their beyond abused legs. They were so limp that they looked like a doll, and so peaceful that they could’ve just been sleeping. Fate wished that they were sleeping, with their head against Ethan’s shoulder and their arm now down at their side. It was still reaching towards Fate, though… and she wanted to grab it, but she had other matters to attend to first.

	She grabbed her knife off of the ground and her gun from her waistband before storming out of the room and back down the hall with Ethan behind her, carefully carrying Max in his arms. The kid barely weighed anything and it just made him feel worse.

	Coming up on Caulder, who was being guarded by multiple friends of Ethan, Fate didn’t even hesitate to raise her gun, firing shots at him. One went into his hip, one in his leg, and then one in his chest. She then threw gun down before brutally stabbing her knife into Caulder’s head, exactly six times.

	Six times for Max, for her, for everyone back at home, for everyone helping out, for this whole entire shitty life. It was six times, six times in the head to make him pay for every single thing he had done. It was six times for the isolation, for the creeping derangea, for the threatening, for the bullet ants, for the shooting… for the death.

	Fate should’ve killed him a long time ago, but now Max was dead and she couldn’t go back.

~~~

	Max was buried in the rose field out in the forest, just by Ethan and Fate. Fate had gone home to explain to the others and they weren’t angry, they were just upset. They were sympathetic.

	Max had a proper funeral, in which many people attended, and it lasted for many hours from early in the morning to late in the afternoon. Ethan was the last to leave because Fate refused to. She sat there, in front of Max’s grave, and she stared blankly at it, covered in gifts from others that represented them. However, a single flower was already blooming from Max’s grave… a single white rose with blue tips.

	Fate didn’t smile. She didn’t cry. She just put her paw down and stared at Max’s name engraved on their tombstone… and she spoke ever so softly, but sincerely.

	“I’ll meet you there.”