For a long while after Kevin's story ended, no one spoke.
Lucille sat quietly with her gaze lowered, folding her hands in her lap. The afternoon sunlight had warmed her skin, but failed to ease the chill lodged deep in her chest.
Kevin's story echoed again and again in her mind, as if haunting her. The image of Rufus' face before death was also clear, as well as when the former's controlled root had struck through his brother's skull.
Despite not wanting to remember it, another image rose.
Her mother's face, ashen and twisted by hunger for bloodthirst. Her father shouted, begging his beloved to stop, but futile.
The sound of her mother shrieked, and when the world had gone quiet afterward.
Lucille inhaled slowly. Because her father had made it for her, she had been spared from making the same choice as Kevin.
If it had been her hand... Would she have been able to do the same by ending her beloved mother?
