by LJ Swallow
The bus arrives and the journey across the city passes in uncomfortable silence. The roads are frustratingly busy, and I stare absently at the faces of people passing alongside in cars. I’ve no idea how long the journey takes could be fifteen or fifty minutes, the time drags. I don't know who's more eager to get onto campus—Jack or me. Usually, he hangs back, resentful I'm forcing him to visit. Today he strides ahead and too fast again.
“Jack, you need to slow down!”
His focus is elsewhere, so I grab Jack’s elbow, and he freezes; my touch is enough to arrest him, even through his jacket.
“Tell me what’s happening,” I say, stepping into his personal space.
Jack inhales and eyes dart around. “I don't know... I think... shit, I don't know!”
“Jack! You're worrying me.” I voice the name hanging between us. “Ava?”
“I don't know.”
“Yes you do! What's she done?” My voice rises, and he steps back from me.
“Nothing. I don't think.”
I lose it, fears of the last few weeks explode into my mind, and I push him in the chest. “Stop this! All the ‘I don't know', 'nothing'.” I mimic his voice and push him again. “Tell me what the hell is going on!”
“I don't...”
Screw this. I shove past him and run towards Keir's halls room. Nausea rises inside, the sum of my fears pushing in thoughts I don't want to have.
Keir's door is open and room empty. Footsteps squeak up the tiled hallway behind, and I turn to a hesitant Jack.
“Tell me!” I yell, voice echoing around us.
Jack shakes his head and turns, rushing out of the building. I run after him, tripping down the stairs. He's faster than me, but he pauses near some trees and waits. A quiet place, not good.
“Last night...” he begins.
“Last night isn't important right now!”
He frowns. “Not that. After we argued, I saw Ava.”
The cool day drops another few degrees. “And?”
“She's still a soul hunter.”
A cold horror courses into my veins. “What the fuck, Jack? Why didn't you tell someone? Is she aware that you know?” I slam my hands into his chest.
“I didn't know what to do. I didn't think I should interfere, but then last night, when I left, I thought more, and know I should've told him straightaway, but I couldn't leave the Nephilim house again once I was back there...”
He's rambling, and I'm not listening. I have to find Keir. Jack watches me warily, which is bloody funny considering he can damage me a lot more than I can him. The urge to smash my fists into Jack overwhelms me, but I fight back the desire and push past him instead.
Where do I go? Look? Ava's room. Five minutes of hammering on her door results in a pissed off neighbour yelling at me and no sign of her. It's the weekend, no classes; she must be with him.
Jack trails after me like a lost child, as I wander across campus in a daze. The midday sun warms the late winter air, but I'm cold. Keir can deal with her; he'll kill Ava if he needs to.
But deep inside, I know he won't. Just as I know if Jack attacked me, I couldn't kill him even if I had the power to. Soul ties are tearing us all apart, and even though I'm not tied to Keir, I can sense something is wrong.
My aimless wandering continues. Keir doesn’t answer his phone and my anxiety rises. Jack suggests one of us waits at Ava's room, the other at Keir's. This is logical, but there's no way I can sit still. Not if I have a chance to stop what Ava is planning.
JACK
Keir lies on the ground in the woods near the lake. The low branches hang naked over him, the bright sunshine above a cruel joke. The scent of fresh blood hits me, alerting me. If I could feel sick, I would, but my disgusting demon body is attracted. I don't want Dahlia to see the motionless Keir and attempt to manoeuvre her in the opposite direction before she notices, but what’s the point? It’s inevitable.
Dahlia's scream bounces off the trees, sending a large black bird flapping into the sky, crying out to match hers, and she runs to him. I hang back, guilt ripping through me. I can tell Keir's dead, no one survives losing the amount of blood seeping into the hard ground around him.
As I watch Dahlia, I again consider her relationship with him. Her long brown hair falls across his face as she kneels next to him. Is she trying to rouse Keir? Kissing him? I'm too far to see, and I'm not stepping closer; I don't want to be near so much blood.
Dahlia bends over him and picks something up. Metal catches the sunlight as she holds up a dagger. She turns back to me, her tear stained face hard as she waves the dagger. “Her! She did it! Why the fuck didn't you tell someone?”
I chew my mouth, and Dahlia pulls herself up, then stumbles over. For a moment, I think she’ll use the dagger on me.
“I didn't think he needed help... he's strong...” I mumble. I leave out the part about asking Ava to kill me. How can I tell Dahlia I don't want to be part of her world?
Or admit the deepest, darkest part of me wishes Keir were gone.
“Is he dead?” I ask, stating the obvious.
“No.”
I shake my fringe from my eyes, as if seeing her more clearly would help her words make sense. “But all the blood...”
“He's Nephilim. It's... temporary.”
The guilt weighing me down lifts a little—I’m not responsible for another death. “So we wait for him? Or take him somewhere until he wakes up or whatever?”
Dahlia stares. “I've one demon in my life; I can't cope with two. And not one as strong as Keir.”
“Demon?”
Pushing me, Dahlia runs out of the trees, and I follow. She ignores me. For the next hour, she paces around campus talking to herself, but not me. My attempts to speak, explain why I failed her, fall on deaf ears. Dahlia has shut me out, finally. But now I don't want her to.
My head spins at the horror of what I've allowed. This is my fault.
Why the hell didn't he kill Ava first?
I gaze at the small, brown-haired girl who could become my next victim in the blink of an eye and see the answer. Soul ties. I guess my real question should be why did Ava kill Keir?
Dahlia calls Asher, but she can’t speak through her sobs. I take the phone and explain what’s happened. After a few moments silence, an overly calm Asher tells me to locate Ava and wait with her until he and Eli arrive. If Ava has killed Keir, it was to take his soul, and they need to find Ava and take the crystal containing his soul before she can return it to Darius.
A frantic Dahlia weaves around the campus, and I see Ava before Dahlia does. She’s hidden on the edge, amongst some trees. Ava's dark clothes blend into the ground, but her candy pink hair stands out, even though she has her arms wrapped around her head.
I make the mistake of stopping and Dahlia's gaze follows mine.
She screams and launches herself at Ava, whose arms remain wrapped across her head. Dahlia drops to her knees and continues the assault.
“Where the fuck is it? What have you done with it?” screams Dahlia.
Dahlia punches Ava in the face. Actually full-on punches her. I rush forward. “Dahlia, stop!”
I grab Dahlia's shoulders and pull her backwards. I imagined the first time I touched Dahlia again would be gentle, affectionate, and a demonstration of self-control. Not interfering in a fight.
“You bitch, you fucking bitch. You did this to him! I always knew you would!”
Encircling Dahlia in my arms, I swallow hard and try to focus on the events unfolding in front of me and ignore the warm, human body whose blood I can feel pumping against my arms. I pin Dahlia’s hands by her side and focus on Ava.
Ava remains still. “Kill me, I don’t care anymore.”
“He thought you cared for him; he fucking loved you!” Dahlia’s voice cracks, and I hear from her tone how badly I let her down. “Well, they’re coming for you,” she spits. “You don’t know what you’ve just done. And I don’t mean Darius.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
Ava doesn't move. I don't move, but I drop my hands from Dahlia, and step back. I can’t touch her unless I need to. I know Dahlia's human and Ava's a soul hunter, but Dahlia's coiled body suggests she might attack Ava. And Dahlia still has the dagger. I need to get Dahlia away from here.
“I’ll wait with her,” I say. “You go. See if he’s still there.”
“He won’t be. I saw the blood. We’ve lost him now.”
Ava continues sobbing.
“Shut the fuck up,” yells Dahlia.
“I didn’t stab him! He did it to himself.”
Dahlia laughs. “Right. Sure. You’re not worth sacrificing anything for.”
“They’re soul tied, too, remember?” I say.
“Not true. You don’t take the soul of someone you’re tied to,” she snaps.
Kneeling back on the ground next to Ava, Dahlia holds her face close to Ava's. “He should’ve killed you. Now he’s lost.”
“He’s dead.”
I squirm at their shared anguish.
Dahlia climbs to her feet and bends over Ava. “Dead? You don’t know anything do you?”
“He is. He—I—we stabbed him. I saw his soul…”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! He didn’t tell you?” Dahlia yanks at her beautiful hair, pulling it into her eyes. “He’s a Nephilim! You don’t just kill them so easily. He’s not dead; he just has no soul anymore. To Keir, that’s even worse than if you had killed him.”
“He’s alive?” Ava’s tiny voice has hope.
“Yeah, but he’s not Keir anymore, not the one you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see. And when the others see… well, you always wanted to know who they were.” Dahlia lurches toward Ava.
Shit. I hold an arm out to restrain Dahlia, and she slumps to the ground. Her wet face tugs at the human Jack's heart, urging me to hold and comfort her.
Instead, I pull Ava to her feet. “You can’t stay here.”
Ava stumbles against me; I smell her too, now she's close. A human smell, but the angel in her blood warns me off and taints the scent somehow. Why can’t Dahlia still have angel in her blood? If she was still a soul hunter she would; I wanted her to be human and now I wish she wasn’t. What a bloody mess.
“Where is he?” whispers Ava. “Where did he go?”
“He’ll be retuning,” says Dahlia, looking up from beneath long, brown hair spilling over her face.
“Returning where?”
Good question. Dahlia breathes heavily, mouth set in a hard line. “To the other Nephilim. The ones like Zach. The ones who work with demons.”
Ava's slipping from my grasp, so I pull her back up, stopping her sinking back to the ground. This is more than guilt; her body is wracked by grief. Pain. Could Ava be right? Did he do this to himself somehow?
Dahlia struggles back to her feet, and before I can intervene, she pulls her hand back and slaps Ava across the face. The crack echoes through the blackening afternoon. “I have wanted to do that since the moment I met you. You’re an evil bitch.”
In surprise, I drop Ava's arms, and she falls to the ground. This Dahlia isn't the girl I knew before.
I'm not the only one who changed this year.
29
DAHLIA
Jack's never visited my new room before. I sit on the edge of the bed staring blankly at my dirty shoes, shivering. He wraps a blanket around my shoulders before sitting on the chair at my desk, chewing his fingernails. Jack's always chewed his nails, odd he still does as a vampire. Vampire. This still sounds weird in my mind.
I'm numb from sitting on the hard ground next to Ava, waiting for Asher and Eli to come. Jack positioned himself between us, and we remained in silence until they arrived and dragged her off. She went willingly, but I wish they'd been less gentle with her. Now all I want to do is curl up under this blanket and cry. The tears won't flow anymore. Every time I think of Keir, my stomach knots. What is he now? Nephilim lose their humanity when they lose their souls. He won’t. Keir isn't the same as the evil Nephilim; he made different choices. Inhumanity won't happen to him. It won't. Can't.
We must’ve waited some time because, now we’re back here, the evening darkens outside my window. Neither of us speaks as the shadows cross the room and light fades. Eventually, Jack leans across my desk and switches on the lamp.
“Are you going to talk to me or sit there and annoy me?” I say.
“I'm not sure you want me near you, but I don't want to leave you alone. Not today.”
I tug the blanket closer around my shoulders. I'm pissed off with him, unimaginably pissed off at his stupidity. And at the inevitability of Keir's situation. Layered onto this anger is fear I'm alone again. The demon boy sitting opposite doesn't want me; he may be back, but he's not mine. Now Keir’s no longer here too. Everything's such a mess because of Ava and hopefully this is the end of her too. Asher and Eli can't let her live and take his soul back to the Caelestia. They wouldn't. Surely.
I study Jack. In the dim light, this could be my Jack, the scruffy but sexy guy with the long legs and toned muscles. We could be back when we met, awkward around each other but desperate to connect. But we're not.
The old Dahlia and Jack triggered this whole chain of events—I triggered the whole chain of events. I'm responsible for Jack’s demon life.
“I don't want to be alone.” My voice cracks, the words that rattle in my head day after day finally spoken.
“You're not alone.”
“Aren't I?”
“No.”
“Yes, I am. I have no one.”
“You have me.” Jack peers from beneath his fringe.
“How can you say that? You won't come near me or touch me.”
“I want to. I'm learning to be around you. And if they can find me help...” He trails off and I guess what he's thinking.
“I won't tell them that you knew about Ava.”
“Thanks.”
I tip my head. “You thanking me. It's a good thing; this means you want help and don't want to...” My turn to trail off. All this dancing around has to stop. “Do you still want to die, Jack?”
Jack studies me for a few moments, and when I look back into his open face, I can clearly see my Jack; how he looked at me all those months ago.
“I don't want to die. I want to be with you. I tried to close my eyes to everything about my old life I didn’t want to see, but I can’t close my heart to the things your Jack feels.” He stares at his feet, hair falling into his face as his mouth moves, the way it does when he’s rehearsing what to say. The way he did last year. Jack looks up. “I understand the soul tie thing now. I also believe what Ava told us about Keir doing this to himself to save her from the Caelestia sending her to hell. Because I'd do the same for you.”
My body screams at my Jack to come over and hold me. Touch me. His refusal to return to me when I found him tore apart my mending heart; and now Keir's gone, my heart is completely shattered. Jack’s words give me the strength I need now. As if he can hear my thoughts, Jack kneels on the floor in front of me and reaches a hand to my cheek. His arm is stretched as far from me as he can, but he's finally touching me. Jack's hand is cool, the same chill as when he held my arms by my side before. His dull eyes brighten as he smiles, and in this light, his pale coloured skin is masked, adding the illusion he’s human. I place my hand over Jack’s and squeeze his fingers.
“Come back to me, Jack,” I whisper. “I need you.”
The desire to throw myself into him overwhelms me, but I fight back. The gesture could be too much, and I don’t want him to run. He strokes my face, the touch sending long forgotten sensations through me. There's a sadness tugging down the corners of Jack's mouth, and I touch his lips. He catches my hand, and I shrink back, not in fear, but in disappointment. To my surprise, he turns my hand over and kisses my palm. Now I tense, his mouth close to the blue veins visible in my wrist. He drops my hand ag
ain.
“I love you.” The hesitancy with which he says the words matches the first time he told me, as if we're starting again. “The dreams never stopped. You haunted me for a year, and now I have you again. The intensity of what I feel for you was never consumed by the demon, just denied by me. If you want me, and can stand to live around a demon, I'll never leave.”
I blink at him, and his weird change in demeanour. Is this what it takes? A tragedy such as Keir to pull us together again? He looks expectant, and I don't know what to say. I never expected this.
“I'm numb, Jack. I have nothing to give.”
He sits back on his heels and looks down. “Oh.”
“I don't mean ever. I mean tonight. After today and...” And Keir.
The memory catches me off guard, and a sob rips from my throat. I cover my mouth, squeeze back the tears, but it's too late. The levy in my mind breaks, and I wrap my arms around my chest, trying to hold in the grief. Gasping through the sobs, I'm aware of Jack folding me in his arms and holding me to his cool, hard chest. I bury my face in his jacket, wishing he still had his Jack smell. The emotions rending my body mirror the day I lost Jack. This time it’s Keir who is the one lost, and Jack’s here to catch me.
30
DAHLIA
Two weeks since Keir’s death and presumed rebirth as a soulless, demonic Nephilim, and we’ve heard nothing from him. Unbelievably, Ava is still around. The Nephilim haven’t killed her; they took the crystal containing Keir’s soul and told her she now needs to help them bring Keir back. When I found out, I lost my shit and only calmed down once I saw the look of horror on Jack’s face at my loss of control.
The night we lost Keir, Jack held me, but nothing more. I fell into an exhausted sleep in his arms, and when I woke, he’d gone. The next day, Jack seemed cautious around me, and I worried he’d changed his mind about still loving me, until we spoke, and he told me he was frightened I blamed him for Keir’s situation. The only person responsible for his current state is Ava. Sensibly, everyone is keeping us apart.