And I think I just might today. I think maybe I’ve earned it. Maybe one small kiss wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Wouldn’t put a dent in my plans of helping him learn how to continue on when I won’t be around anymore. So I tighten my towel around me and step into the room, determined to have at least one more night. One more time when everything between us is right, but he isn’t there.
He left.
Already coping the only way he knows how to cope—by closing himself off.
This is what I wanted. This is what’s best for him. What’s best for the both of us right now.
So why does it hurt so bad?
JAXEN AND I FIND GAVIN and Cassie at the taco stand with the food already ordered. Like always.
They’re always the first to feed us. The first to check in on us and make sure we’re doing well. I don’t think I’ve noticed until this exact moment how they’re like the parents of our small group. They keep us together. Keep us whole.
Cassie waves brightly at me, and then pulls me into a hug the moment I’m within arm’s reach. She’s smaller than when I last saw her, and her complexion is that of a wilting, white rose. I smile at her and tell her how good she looks despite it all, because no one who feels as sick as she must be feeling needs to be told how they look. They already know. They feel it with every breath they take.
“How are you?” she asks, keeping her arm around me as we head to the table.
“Tired, but good. You?”
She smiles at me. “I’m alive. What more can I say?”
Sadness fills my smile as we take our seats next to each other. I search for something to say back, but small talk has never been my thing, so I settle on reaching for her hand and squeezing.
“Mack has you training all day, doesn’t he?” she asks, passing napkins around the table.
“Yeah. He wants to make sure we’re prepared for every possible outcome when it comes to the Exanimator.”
“Figures. I guess it’s a good thing.” She leans back in her chair, fluffing out her hair. “He has us in simulations as well, though it’s just the normal stuff we’ve always trained for.” She leans closer to me, dropping her voice. “Thankfully, I have the partner I do. Lately, I find it hard just to get out of bed in the morning. My body just can’t take the abuse it once did, though I’d die before I let Gavin know.”
“Let Gavin know what?” Gavin asks as he sets the tray of tacos on the middle of the table. Jaxen takes his seat next to me, eyes everywhere but on me.
She spins her head around, smirking at him. “If I told you, then I’d have to kill you.”
“Kill me?” he repeats, hand to his chest. “You wouldn’t last one minute without me.” He leans in and kisses her, and I look away, not wanting to pry on such a private moment. Not wanting to have another reminder of how much I’ve screwed up with Jaxen. I feel his sadness as if it were a noose around my neck.
“We miss training with you, kick ass,” Gavin says as he sits on the other side of Cassie.
“Yeah, it isn’t the same,” Cassie adds with a small frown. “Even Jaxen seems more down than usual.”
“I miss you guys too,” I admit, painting on a smile. Pretending my heart didn’t just get struck by an avalanche of sorrow. “Mack did say something about putting us all back in training together soon though.”
“Yeah, as soon as we get through the simulation without fudging it up,” Weldon says as he walks around the table. He says hi to everyone, and then pulls out a chair for Jezi who walked up with him.
She doesn’t wear that easy smile on her face she normally wears when she sits, and it makes me wonder if he finally cut the ties.
His eyes meet mine, almost as if he knows what I’m wondering, and then he looks away, the sadness in his gaze telling me all I need to know.
“So… tell me all the juicy details,” Cassie says, nudging me on the side. “What kind of crap has Mack put you guys through? Is it anything like Clara? Has he driven you mad yet with his incessant ranting about political affairs no one cares about?”
I have to laugh because gossip has always been Cassie’s thing. I open my mouth to tell her there isn’t anything fun or interesting happening, but she quickly cuts me off, waving her hands and smiling as she says, “Okay, okay, okay. Enough about you. Gavin and I have news for you all.”
My heart jumps a little as a few minor possibilities about what it could possibly be flitter through my mind. Possibilities that could bring a little warmth to our predicament. Warmth I probably won’t be around to take part in.
The thought slams into my heart like a freight train, but I force a smile and tuck away my worries, trying to be happy for those I love the most.
“Don’t tell me you’re pregnant!” Jezi says, taking the thought from my brain as my eyes mindlessly wander to Cassie’s stomach. There’s a current of excitement whizzing around the table, passing through every one of us as we wait for her to answer.
Cassie snorts. “Heck no! Not during these times.” She looks over her shoulder at Gavin as my shoulders drop.
“But one day soon,” he adds, his eyes gazing lovingly at her. “We will have a family. A big one.”
Cassie pulls her head back, all smiles. “A big one, huh?”
He’s chuckling. “Yeah. A whole litter of kids that we’ll do right by. They won’t have the same life Jaxen and I had. They won’t have to go to bed every night wondering if we’re going to be there in the morning.”
I glance over at Jaxen, who’s smiling, and then blush when his eyes land on mine. It’s there, in his gaze. The same desire to have a family. The same love and passion that Gavin looks at Cassie with, and it makes me feel so small. So shitty for everything I keep from him. And so sick to my stomach with knowing that even if I didn’t push him away, the possibilities of having a family are about as slim as me making it out of the Exanimator alive.
“Well, when this is all over and the curse is broken, then maybe we can think about it,” Cassie says, patting Gavin’s cheek. She turns back to us. “Which kind of brings me to my point. We haven’t been around much because we’ve used being back in the city and without the restrictions Clara had previously set on us to dig up some information.”
Jaxen leans on his elbow. “What kind of information?”
“Information about how we can bring Mourdyn down and destroy this curse,” Gavin says, his face returning to its stony nature.
“Did you take it to Mack the asshat?” Weldon asks before scarfing down a taco.
“Nah,” Gavin says. “He’s too busy with worrying about the war and the Exanimator. He doesn’t care about our curse.”
Weldon clicks his teeth. “Isn’t it sad to know the guy leading our Coven doesn’t care about the peons holding it up for him?”
“I try not to look at it that way,” Cassie says, picking at a napkin. “He’s got a lot on his plate. We can handle this little bit on our own. We have to.” Cassie’s smile fades. “Time isn’t exactly on my side.”
There’s an aching quiet we all pass around.
“But anyway,” Cassie says, running her hands through her hair as she sits straighter. “Evangeline told us about a library in the downtown area of Ethryeal City that has a lot of old books that had been kicked out of the mainstream libraries years ago. Even some that were removed from the personal libraries of High Priests.”
“The same place Mack’s been using?” Weldon asks.
Gavin nods. “He saw us in there once. Told us to keep looking.”
“And?” Jaxen asks with a tinge of hope in his voice.
Cassie looks to Gavin, and then back to us. “We found a log of sorts that was kept by a High Priest before the Divine were laid for their eternal rest after defeating Mourdyn. Whoever wrote it was close to the Divine. A sort of record keeper, I think.”
“Do you have the book?” Jezi asks, all ears.
Cassie pulls it from her lap and puts it on the table. “It’s written in the old language, so Evangelin
e did a lot of the interpreting for us. It says the Exanimator was created to run off Mourdyn’s magic. It’s tied to him, and once it absorbs the right amount of magic—”
“My magic,” I say.
She nods. “Yes. Once it absorbs your magic, it will indeed implode.”
I feel Jaxen tense up at the word implode, and I rush to say what I’m thinking. Anything to distract him from asking about what it could mean.
“Which is exactly what Mack told us,” I say, looking to Weldon and trying not to think about the other part of what Mack said that they don’t know about. “So when I destroy it, then Mourdyn will die too since he’s connected to it?” I ask, hoping this is what she means.
Her face crinkles up. “Not really. This is where the deciphering grew tricky.” She flips through some of the pages of the book. “You see, it’s badly damaged. Some of the pages have been ripped out or faded from time. All we could decipher is that when the Everlasting links up with the machine, Mourdyn will wake. And once he wakes, so will every other Divine.”
“Holy shit,” Weldon says, grabbing his hair with his hands. “You’re telling me we’re about to have another civil war? All so we can end this curse?”
“And stop Clara and the Darkyns,” I throw in.
Gavin nods. “Yeah. That’s pretty much it. The Divine are the only ones who can kill Mourdyn, using the Dagger of Retribution, and they’re linked to the spell that keeps him under. The spell they casted on him after the Great Battle of the Covens,” he quickly adds.
“So then I don’t have to kill him?” I say, unsure if I should feel relieved or not. Unsure of everything concerning what I must do.
“I don’t know. There are too many pages missing. All we gathered was that when the day comes for you to destroy the machine and wake Mourdyn, we will have the Divine on our side.”
The Divine I may or may not get to meet. I swallow what they say, the taste in my mouth bittersweet. At least I know that if I do in fact die, they’ll have the Divine to help them.
“They had to have known putting Mourdyn to sleep wouldn’t be a quick fix. Why else would they have linked themselves?” Cassie proposes.
Gavin’s eyes are on me. “And also, they wrote about the Everlasting, so they knew this day would come,” he says reassuringly.
I breathe a little easier, thinking maybe Mack’s men got it wrong. Maybe my mother’s hope that I didn’t necessarily die was right.
Weldon looks over at me. “Maybe this is our loophole. Mack has to be wrong, mouse. You can’t have been created just to die.”
I take every one of his words and latch onto them as if they were a lifeline. Maybe this is a break. But it’s a break I’ll keep heavily guarded. I don’t want to get my hopes too high. I’d rather be prepared for the worst, and thankful for the best.
“So then we have hope. You’ll survive the curse,” Jezi says, reaching for Cassie’s hands.
I internally ream myself for being selfish in thinking about my life when I should stay focused on Cassie’s.
Cassie’s eyes fill with tears. “I think so,” she says more confidently than I’ve heard in a long time.
I smile at her, my stomach twisting with mixed emotions.
Gavin wraps his arms around her shoulders. “I told you I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. You’re my girl. I love you.”
She leans her head against his. “I love you too.”
Jezi squeezes her hands.
“I think this calls for a celebration then,” Weldon says, standing from his seat. “Let’s get shots going!”
Jezi giggles as she follows him over to the bartender by the taco stand.
“This is really happening?” Jaxen asks, running his hands through his hair.
Gavin grins. “It is, brother. We’re going to put an end to this curse and these damn Darkyns once and for all. It only took the Gramm brothers to do it.”
“Hey,” I say playfully. “You aren’t doing it alone.”
Jaxen puts his arm around me and pulls me in. “No, we’re not. And neither are you.” There’s more to those four words than what they sound like.
“Here we go. A little tequila for everyone,” Weldon says as he and Jezi set a row of shots on the table.
We all pick one up. “To survival,” Weldon says.
We all shout, “To survival,” and then throw the shot back.
YOU KNOW HOW THEY SAY that for every dark cloud, there’s a silver lining?
The same can be said in reverse.
Life has a way of testing us, of giving things, and then taking them all away. And maybe that’s how it should be. Maybe that’s how we learn to appreciate what little we do have because, if we didn’t, then it wouldn’t be worth anything to us. At least not in the ways that matter.
In the two weeks that have passed, Mack’s told me the theories his trusted friends have given him about what will happen once I fill the machine with my power. Some think I’ll die and it will give an unlimited power source to the machine, thus allowing them to use it to safely break the affinity bonds between hunters and witches… just like Clara thought.
Others, the majority, think it will implode from the light of my power. Right now, it runs from the darkness of Mourdyn’s power. They explained that there’s a difference in magic. A light and a dark that happens with every choice you make while using the gifts blessed on us by the God and Goddess. My choices have been pure. Have been selfless. It makes my magic stronger, whereas Darkyns kill their brethren to better themselves, thusly tainting their magic. They think the machine can’t contain the light in my magic. It will be the cause of its malfunction.
I pray for the latter.
And when I’m not planning my inevitable suicide, I spend my nights with my friends and my father. I watch Jaxen teach Chrissa how to fight and throw, and I think about how lucky I feel to know he has her, Gavin, and his mom. How things will be different when I’m not around anymore. Evangeline cooks dinner for us a few times a week, and we eat as a family full of misfits inside her small apartment, only talking about things that don’t pertain to the upcoming war… a request of Evangeline’s.
In these brief moments of levity, when Lukah’s passing a joke around the table, and Harper’s looking at him with those big, loving eyes, I smile. When Chrissa sneaks off to her room, returning with her latest drawing to show everyone, and then blushes the moment we tell her how amazing her talent is, I smile. When my father tells us his daily recounting of training with the same sort of luster in his eyes I used to see before I found out I wasn’t a defect, I smile.
I store every smile deep inside my heart, saving them up to use when my darkest hour approaches.
Time continues to give me these small breaks. These tiny chances to make the most of my time, and I do. I think we all kind of fell into a twisted pattern of comfort. After the manor burnt to the ground and our Rebellion retaliated against the Darkyn Coven attacks, things became quiet. Months have gone by and, every day, it’s easier and easier to believe that maybe we are safe. Maybe they have given up.
But I know better. No one is safe. The Veil is down. Ethryeal City is no longer protected by the ancient magic that keeps out our foes from the Underground. And people all around the world, who may not have been attacked by Darkyns, are being hunted by those who are just as bad, if not worse.
Vampires. Werewolves. Demons.
But even I find myself slipping from time to time. Forgetting that the very real, very dangerous mission Weldon and I train for day in and day out is right around the corner. We’re just sitting ducks, waiting for Seamus and Mack to give us the go-ahead.
But, for some reason, they’re holding back.
I should have known when I woke this morning and found myself staring up at the cloudless, perfectly blue sky. Should have known when Jaxen took my hand in his, for the first time in weeks since our last argument, and walked me to meet with his mother and her pack. Should have realized when the woman on the screen said there
had been no new incidents or deaths to report in over two weeks.
Not a single peep around the entire world.
“Can you believe it?” Jaxen asks as we wait for Lukah to come to the gate and let us in.
“Not really,” I say, grateful for the small reprieve between us.
“Me either,” he says.
“They’re planning something,” Weldon tosses in from beside Jezi. She looks over at him, her gaze shielded. “No news is not good news in this case.”
“Yeah, well, there isn’t much we can do about it,” Jaxen says as we spot Lukah up ahead.
I lean forward so I can see Weldon. “Mack and Seamus have been tight-lipped for almost a week now about what’s going to happen next. We all know the only time Mack goes quite is when something is brewing.”
Weldon snorts. “Yeah, the shit storm of the century.”
“Hey, guys,” Lukah calls as he jogs up to the fence. “Can’t stay away, can you?” His hair is shorter than before, falling just past his ears in golden spirals. His eyes hold a little more sadness than I remember, but he still wears a charming smile.
“How is she?” Jezi asks, bypassing his attempt at humor.
The smile we all shared sizzles out as sadness pours over us. The night before, we learned Cassie had become ill to the point where she could no longer train.
The curse is finally taking its toll.
“She’s stable. Evangeline is wise when it comes to this,” Lukah says as we head through the gate and follow behind him toward the building where they live.
Jaxen squeezes my hand. He hasn’t slept a wink since he got the call from his brother. I don’t think any of us has. “Of course she is.”
My heart beats harder the closer we get to Evangeline’s apartment. My arms feel heavy, like lead has been pumped into my veins. Cassie refused to be taken anywhere else, and I can’t blame her. Not even the best medical team in the city could understand what her body is going through.
We avoid each other’s gazes as we wait for Lukah to tell us when we can enter. No one has seen Cassie since she collapsed. Jaxen only spoke to Gavin for a short moment, long enough to know their mother was going to do everything she could to make Cassie as comfortable as possible as the end approaches.
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