84. Her Fault

Layla opened the window and leaned out to figure out what was happening. There was something in the air pressing down on her. Fear and desperation. She recognised it only because she had felt it too much in the months she had been there.

All around her, she heard the sounds of fighting. Growls. Snarls. Yelps and whines. She heard the clinking of weapons and shouting. She heard children crying.

The gates had been open when Jackson’s people gathered at the front of the house, but they were firmly shut now. The fighting seemed to be beyond the gates, maybe in town. She didn’t know why she could hear that far, but the sounds brought her out of the depression she had sunk into the past two weeks.

People were dying. She could hear their gurgling as they took their last breaths, terrifying her, breaking her. She heard a girl scream and then nothing. As if her life had just been ripped from her.

Shock forced her to step back from the window and clutch her chest.

These were Jackson’s peopl