The Bargaining Path

by T. Rudacille

  ***

  “Can we talk about it?” James asked me, and I frowned at him as I took several large gulps from the water bottle he had stolen from the freezer room of the house we were in.

  “Talk about what, sweetheart?” I asked, after I had stopped drinking, “Adam?”

  Adam and Penny were raiding the pantry for food, and because they were talking quietly about what to take and what to leave behind (in Penny’s terms, that translates to what was “good” and what was “utterly disgusting”) so he could not possibly have been eavesdropping; Penny commanded all of someone’s attention, not just a fraction.

  “Well, we need to talk about that, too. But…”

  “I kissed him, and I kissed you. Technically, I am married to him, by the laws of these Bible-humping lunatics.”

  “It’s Bible-thumping, baby. I can’t believe I am able to correct you…”

  “It generally is Bible-thumping, but I changed it to Bible-humping because it is funny and accurate. It is funnily accurate.” I took another long drink of water, “But yes, we are married now, even though I want to be married to you. I have decided that. I have decided I want to be married to you.”

  “And I want to be married to you, baby. But…”

  “But I also have really strong feelings for Adam, and that is problematic. I do not know why all this is coming out. I have a lot of adrenaline still…” My voice jumped as I began to laugh again. I covered my face, hearing Adam and Penny’s conversation cease; I knew he was looking back at me. “I’m sorry… Go back to what you’re doing. You’re doing a great job, Penny. Baby Penny… Only she’s not a baby anymore.” I laughed harder, “God, it’s been six years… And it’s been two years for you and me… And I love you.” My laughter stopped, and I pulled myself up so I was crouching in front of him, too.

  “But you love him, too.”

  “Of course not! Don’t be so dramatic. I love you, but I can’t fight this… attraction to him, James.”

  “He shot you. He broke your wrist.”

  “You beat me. You broke both my wrists and fractured my shoulder with your teeth.”

  “I was high.”

  “So was he.”

  “Where is all this coming from?” He asked, and his frustration was mounting. “You hated him before all of this. I know that you two had sex. I’m aware of that. I’m aware that it wasn’t ‘altogether unpleasant’ for you. I told you that the same goes for me and Janna.”

  “Yes, and that makes me sick, but go on…”

  “It makes you sick, but the thought of you and Adam doesn’t make me sick? The things you’re saying about him now, about this attraction to him, don’t make me sick?”

  I opened my mouth to retort, but then I realized, in a moment that should have been accompanied by the triumphant cry of a full band playing all of their instruments at once, how terribly I had reasoned everything. I had assumed that James would come to agree with Adam, that if I wanted both of them, I should have both of them, because having both of them would make me happy. Never once did I account for the fact that if I was allowed to have Adam, then James should be allowed to have someone else, too. The thought of him even looking at another woman the same way he looked at me, let alone engaging with her in physical intimacy, were enough to make me bring my head forward to rest against his shoulder and for a groan to escape me.

  “Alright… Alright… We don’t have to talk about this now, baby. I’m sorry.” He kissed my cheek.

  “Damn it… Goddamn it… Goddamn it…” I muttered to myself.

  “Uh-oh…” He pulled us both up onto our feet, pulled my hands away from my face, wrapped them around his back, and then wrapped his own arms around me. “The traditional words and phrases that my girlfriend uses when she has absolutely had it…”

  “I made a decision, and I had not thought it through completely.”

  “Baby, it’s alright. It happens. God, the situations were certainly out of the ordinary.”

  “How did I miss that? How did I miss that glaringly obvious issue with my great plan? If I could have Adam, you could have someone else, too. You could have… Janna… or someone. But she is the worst possibility.”

  “Well, I have had… Janna… twice now, and she’s got nothing on you, baby. And she’s like, several hundred years old.”

  “Oh, every guy says that!”

  “I knew you were going to say that. Look, crazy…” He pulled away from me so I could look at him, “I get it, okay? I’m not mad at anything you’ve said, because I get it. My jealousy got in the way of me seeing it before, but I’m there now. You’re young. You haven’t been with anyone else. I know better than anyone else that it’s hard not to get attracted to other people. But Brynna, everyone does it. Everyone looks around when they’re in a relationship and sees other people they want. But what it comes down to is whether or not you want to stick it out with the person you’re with already or if you want someone else. I am not a good sharer, and honestly, I don’t think he is, either.”

  “No, he said…”

  “I know. Let me guess, ‘we’ll make it work, because it will make you happy.’ Right?”

  “What? Has he said that to you before?”

  “No. I have used that line before. Several times.”

  “I don’t think he was being disingenuous.”

  “I am not even going to go there. Baby, I know it sounds possessive, but I am not willing to share you with someone else. And I know that you’re not willing to share me with someone else. So, if I’m possessive, you’re possessive, too.”

  “Yes.” I said, nodding, “Just let me tell him once we are safe, okay?”

  “Of course.” He said, “Now, on to the other thing…”

  “No.” I shook my head emphatically, “Let’s just let it die.” Another fit of giggles took me, “Oh, God… Let’s just let it die. Like how he died… My hands hurt badly. They’re swollen and puffy and so woefully unattractive.”

  “Baby, you said something… You were screaming a lot of things, but then you said something, and I don’t normally try to make you tell me things… but you were saying ‘just like Michael.’ Do you remember that?”

  I shook my head, though I did recall vaguely shouting something similar.

  “Sweetheart…”

  “Of course he was like Michael.” I said, covering it quickly. “He was abusive towards women, just in a different way. Ew, what did you think I meant? Jesus…”

  I turned to walk away, but he grasped my wrist to stop me.

  “Baby…”

  “What does it matter? Is this because I kept secrets from you, that you are pushing me to tell you this now? Because if so, then please be aware of the hypocrisy of that. We have bigger fish to fry, as they say, than those, so I will not discuss the things I have omitted from our many deep conversations, because they are hidden chapters of my annoying and pathetic open-book of a life. No one needs to know about any more tragedies that I have survived. They will call it too distressing to be believed.”

  “I will not call it that, because I know those tragedies, and I knew them before I knew you, and nothing about them would surprise me.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters because you want to say it, Brynna. I have always known that there were other things you wanted to tell me but couldn’t.”

  “Oh, please! You are being dramatic again.”

  “You know that I’m not. I know that I’m not.”

  “You think you can say these things to me, and I am so young and stupid that I will believe them, that I will actually believe that I have been wanting to tell you these things, but you are wrong… And what does it matter? I do not want to talk to you about them. I do not want to talk to anyone about them. Rachel is one thing, but him… I…”

  I stopped and rubbed my eyes with my shaking hands, feeling tears suddenly. My heart was racing, thundering, crashing… No one knew but Maura and Rachel about him… Maura knew e
verything, all the terrible things. That was why she was so damaged, because she had seen the worst of them. That is why I was so damaged, because I had experienced the worst of them firsthand… There was no possible way I could ever speak of it out loud… There was too much complexity to it, too many layers, each one deeper and more complicated by inexplicable reason than the last… Because he had never exhibited such signs towards his other two daughters (thank God or the Gods) it must have been that he truly had disregarded me as a child after Luc died, and if he had disregarded me as his child, then it was no longer as wrong as it could have been… right? But if he could do that to me, when I was biologically his child, however disregarded I might have been, had he thought of it before I was disregarded? Had every moment of our lives together, before Luc died, when I had loved him, and he had loved me, been tainted by such sickness?

  And was he sick? Or was he evil? And if he was evil, was I evil? Was that why I had so little regard for the sanctity of the lives of those I hated? He had had no regard for me, for my wellness or my life, because he hated me. And he hated me because I took his son away, who was so good. So evil did not beget evil, at least not completely…

  And when Rachel came along, and he objected to it so violently, was it because he knew he was partially responsible, along with Michael, for my new and vehement disregard of men? That would explain why he objected to James, because maybe he thought, in some sick way, he and Michael had been responsible for my gravitation towards older men. Or was it… was it… jealousy?

  And when the worst of the worst, the absolutely most terrible thing happened, when I was nineteen (Violet’s age!), did it suddenly stop because I was involved with a woman, who could not possibly have put me in such a state? And when my body bled that little thing out all over my bathroom floor, and Rachel took me to the hospital, and they asked, “Where is the father? Where is the father?” and I just laughed and laughed and laughed, because wasn’t it just so fucking ironic? Wasn’t it just so disgusting and pathetic that it almost couldn’t be believed?

  Do you believe that so many awful things could happen to someone? That from birth to the beginning of age nine, my life had been so wonderful, so unburdened, so perfect, and that just one sick, frightening man with sick, frightening tastes could change everything? How much power I had given him, given both of them… For Michael to assault me so many times, for the trauma of it to make me slip away, and while I was lost in it all, for Lucien to die? And after Lucien died, for my parents to blame me, for Maura to accuse me of stealing her husband, for me to get erased from their lives so easily? For my father to come banging on my door late at night, to force his way in in more ways than one (he was strong for a drunk, strong and fast) and then to claim he had forgotten (and maybe he had, because he had always been so drunk, he drooled and called me by my mother’s name) and then for me to get pregnant (“And who could’ve knocked you up? You’re a fucking dyke now, aren’t you?! That menopausal bitch you’re dating do it to you?!”) And for my mom to cry and cry, to say the first full sentences she had said to me in years (“Well, what else were you going to do!?” “Why the Lord gave you the ability to do it… to even be able to… after what happened to Luc… Jesus Christ!”) And then for me to bleed it out on the floor, while Rachel held onto me from behind, holding the towel between my legs because my hands were shaking too badly, and I couldn’t breathe… And I said I should have just killed myself the night Luc died… And she said she loved me so much, and she was going to take care of me, and later, when I told her that despite it all (and how sick is this?!) I wished I had had the baby, she said we would have one later, if I still wanted one, and it was the first time we had ever applied any language of permanence to our relationship, and despite it all, it made me feel good, and then she was dead, and I was in my friends’ apartments, and I was telling them that my father had done it, and if he had done it, then did he do it because of what she knew about him, what I had said to tell everyone, what I said I would tell everyone, and what she knew about my mother…? We were so close to revolution, and it died with her, but honestly, and this is so wrong, I didn’t care about that.

  I had not forgotten all of that darkness, but somehow, it had been tucked away, in the darkest recesses of my mind, and only once in a while, I would feel a twinge of horror in my heart that would trigger a twinge of pain in my lower abdomen, and I would suddenly remember the harsh red of the blood on my hands, on my floor, streaming down my legs. Of them yelling. Of that damn banging on the door in the middle of the night. And God, all of that blood. But somehow, I wouldn’t acknowledge how I had gotten to that point, who had put the baby there… The baby that was all over my hands, on my floor, and streaming down my legs…

  Is it so shocking that the end of the world, so unfathomably awful, was a godsend for me, because it took me to Pangaea, where I had been so happy for the first time in so long? It is selfish to say such a thing, but it is how I feel, even today. Pangaea came into my life, bringing with it the promise of survival and millions of possibilities, and despite all that had happened—all the fear, uncertainty, tragedy, and pain—and I had never been so happy.

  “Brynna… darling…”

  I became aware of the fact that my throat was completely locked, and my breaths were deep, slow, and loud. I was on my knees, doubled over on the ground, trying to breathe but instead just making those terrible rasping noises. Once again, as I was suffering a meltdown, Adam was in front of me, whispering to me that everything was going to be alright.

  “Can’t… breathe…” I gasped, and he pulled me up so he could hold me against him. “So loud… so many thoughts… Adam… Adam!”

  “Close your eyes.” He said calmly, and he held his lips to my cheek for several seconds, before whispering in my ear again, “Close your eyes.”

  I did.

  Now listen to my voice. Just listen to my voice. It is just you and me here. It is quiet, and it is safe. And there is nothing for miles, Brynna. Everything that is happening now is long past. It is so far away that we barely remember it. And if our present is so far away, then your past is even further. It is nothing but a tiny, distant speck on the horizon of our lives. All of your pain, all of your fear, all of the terrible, unfair, unjust things that have happened to you can barely strike you anymore, because a hundred years have passed. A thousand years have passed, and you have been so happy. You have been happy, and all those we love have been happy, and that happiness has erased all of your pain, all of your fear, and all of those terrible, unfair, unjust things that happened. It is of an old life. A life that is gone. A life that is dead and buried. It holds no power over you anymore. It is still there, but it is so tiny, you can barely see it. You can barely feel it.”

  I nodded, my breathing more steady and even.

  “Our lives are so long, Brynna. One day, you will awaken in the morning, and you will realize that those things that give you such heartache now are blocked by haze. And then, they will fade completely. Every day that you live happily, free from pain and fear, will add to that haze, and then, those memories will fade completely. I promise you this, Brynna. I promise.”

  I nodded again, tears streaming down my face still but my breathing returned to normal. I pulled away from him, and he kissed my cheek. When James apologized profusely, I forgave him. And later, when we had finally made it into the woods, and James and Penny had fallen asleep, I told Adam everything. The whole story. I told everything there was to tell, from start to finish, for the first time ever in my life. My face burned red at certain parts, my stomach turned over, and I cried throughout most of it, but I told him. He was quiet the whole time, looking away from me, listening intently. The only time he spoke was when I paused or told him none of it mattered, I shouldn’t be talking about it, and then, he insisted gently that I continue, because it did matter; it mattered more than anything else. I cried in his arms, with my head against his chest, until there was not a single tear left after the whole dar
k tale was told. And he held me, and he shed many tears on my behalf.

  “I am so sorry.” He said over and over again.

  And as the sun began to rise, lighting the forest with the blue light of dawn, I sat in front of him, and kissed him for the last time, telling him that James would never agree, and he said he understood.

  “I will simply bide my time, my darling.” He said, and he pushed my hair away from my face with both hands, “You two will never last.”

  “Adam…” I said, “Please don’t.”

  “I will say no more.” He said, and when I saw that his eyes were alight with that mischievous glint, I rolled my eyes and laughed for the first time in hours.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “You will be unable to resist me, now that you know of my charm and… other abilities.”

  “Oh, stop…” I sighed, but I was smiling brightly.

  “God, it has been so long since I have seen that. Not just your beautiful smile, but one of that magnitude.”

  “That was incredibly cheesy.”

  “Yes. Yes, it was. But that does not make it any less true. Also, we have gone another whole night without sleeping, despite being so exhausted. How many days are we up to now?”

  “I am up to about four. How about you?”

  “Well, I dozed briefly yesterday, but you did not.”

  “No, I did. I just have not had a full night’s sleep in four days. We can sleep for days once we’re there, but right now, I just want to keep going.”

  As I was speaking, I could feel other presences getting closer to us. We had stopped for too long. They had tracked us, and we were not well-hidden.

  “How many of them are there?” I asked him, when I noticed that he had come forward and begun to smell the air.

  “Just the worst ones, and they are close. Come on!”

  We shook James and Penny awake, and James threw Penny onto his back so we could run again.

  “How far are we?”

  “Still rather far, from this angle. But the sun is rising; we can run off the path soon. It will be quicker once we are able to run in a straight line.”

  “Which direction?” I asked, and he gestured.

  “Alright. Penny…” I took her from James, set her down in front of me, and put both hands on her face, “I have seen it already, and so have you, that you make it safely to the bunkers. Right?”

  “Yes, but Mommy…”

  “I know, baby. But you have to.”

  “But what about…”

  “We’ll be fine. We’ll be there soon, I promise. Listen, they are less than a minute from us, so you have to go now. We are right behind you, I promise. I promise, Penny.”

  I kissed her forehead twice, and then turned her around to face the woods.

  “We are right behind you.”

  She was crying, but I knew that she would listen; I knew that she would run, because I had told her to run.

  “We’re right behind you, Penny.” I said.

  “No, you’re not.” She cried, and the fear gripped me for just a second as I wrapped my arms around her for the last time.

  “I love you, Penelope Sylvia. You are the love of my life, and don’t you ever forget it. Yes?

  She cried harder.

  “Yes?” I pressed her, “Penny!”

  “Yes,” She sobbed, “I love you, Mama. I love you, Daddy. I love you, Adam.”

  Despite everything, I smiled slightly, and kissed her head.

  “We love you, too. Now, go.”

  She zoomed off of the trail, in the direction of the bunkers. My body was frozen as I watched the last sight of her disappear. Tears rose into my eyes before I could stop them. I wanted to call out to her again and again, but I had no idea what it was that I wanted to say.

  “Idan is there.” Adam told me softly, “Idan is there, and if Violet, Alice, Quinn, and Nick arrived safely, then they are there, too.”

  “And Savannah went with the kids, Brynn. I sent her away, because I knew they would kill her first if they found her here.” James said, “She’ll take care of Penny. You know she will.”

  “I’m not going to see her again.” I whispered, “Not for…”

  “Well, look…” Rich’s snide voice said, and his elation over this triumphant victory was obvious in his tone but not on his face when I turned around to face him, “Did you all finally run out of steam? Where’s the little mutt? Did she get taken by the tree demons?”

  “Where’s Mary? Is she at home, trying to cake foundation on to cover up the hole I so kindly bit into her face?”

  He grasped a handful of my shirt and pulled me to him, clenching his fist, but Adam and James both grabbed him before he could hit me.

  “No, no gentlemen…” One of Rich’s unnamed minions said, and he pointed a rifle at us. There were eight of them, total. Three of us. The odds were more than likely in our favor, but they had guns.

  “We brought some others with us. This is going to be a party.”

  From behind them, I saw that they had brought Janna, Elijah, and a few others I recognized but whom I could not imagine had done much to warrant an execution with the worst of us.

  “Adam! Adam, my love… I am so sorry.”

  “Oh, woman, you are not sorry, but now is not the time to gripe about it.”

  “Brynn!” Elijah said, “Brynn, I’m sorry… I’m sorry about…”

  “You are sorry, and I accept it.”

  They were pulling us along through the woods, and when they forced us down onto our knees and began tying our hands with wire, I knew exactly where our confrontation was headed. It was the same as the vision I had seen. I closed my eyes, trying to steady my breathing, but instead, I inadvertently allowed my mind to open up, to show me the rest of the vision, which showed us all fading away.

  “So, let’s see, should we do this officially or not, Rich?”

  “No.” Rich said, “No speeches. No last words. Tyre is going to realize it soon. You know how he is.”

  “Who are these others with us? Rather, why are they with us?” I heard Adam ask.

  “For causing disturbances in the group after they had been fully integrated. For trying to start a rebellion. Specifically, for trying to gather a group to bust all of you out.”

  “Thank you.” I said to them, and one of them nodded, but the others, two young guys and two young girls, were staring straight ahead, shaking, crying, and biting their lips.

  I looked at James, and he rested his forehead against mine.

  “Do we get out of this, sweetheart?” He asked me, and his voice was trembling.

  I shook my head, feeling my own body beginning to tremble with him. He nodded, and pressed his forehead to mine.

  “I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have pushed it, and I’m sorry.”

  “Stop.” I said, and I shook my head again, almost compulsively. “You have nothing to be sorry for, James.”

  I nestled my head under his and bit my lip, trying hard to stifle the tears that so desperately wanted to come into my eyes. I had cried enough already in that second year of Pangaea. I had cried more than I had ever cried in my life, and I was alright with that suddenly, but I would not cry in front of Rich. I would not give him that satisfaction, not after he had married me off to Adam because it was funny to him, not after he had wanted Adam to rape me and Adam had not.

  “We’re going to be alright. We’re going to be alright, I promise.” James said, but his voice was shaking, “I promise you, we’re going to be alright.”

  I could hear Adam speaking softly to Janna in the same way. It did not make me angry, to know that he was comforting her; in fact, it made the feelings I had for him surge inside of me. In the last moments, when nothing else mattered but that they were the final moments, Adam was able to put aside his anger towards her and comfort her.

  “Caspar… Idan…” I heard her say, and she was not crying, either, which made a surge of respect go through me for the
first time ever in regards to her.

  “He will be taken care of. Eury is with him, and Penny is on her way there now, and Brynna’s sister will look after him. He will be alright, Janna. I promise.”

  “Adam…” I said, and I do not know why I said it. It was not to commandeer his attention away from her. It was merely to say then, before we died, by just saying his name, that I loved him. He turned to me and kissed my cheek. Then, he pulled away and looked at me, looked deeply into my eyes.

  “I know, my beauty.” He said softly, “I know, because I feel the same.”

  We turned back to our partners as though we hadn’t said a word.

  “Do you want to know…” James said once my face was back under his, “Do you want to know how I was going to propose?”

  “Yes.” I said, “Tell me, James. Were you going to go the traditional route and get down on one knee, or…”

  “Oh, I was definitely going to get down on one knee. I was going to take out a ring, and say, ‘I know I said never again, but that's not fair to you. And I know that you're a Viking woman, and you're progressive, and a Feminist, and you don't believe in marriage or what it represents, and here of late, it's gotten a really bad rap given what's going on up north, but Brynna... there are so many reasons why we should do this.’”

  “And I would have said to share what those reasons are.”

  “And I would have said, ‘Well, first and foremost...’” I looked at him, and he kissed me softly, “‘I love you. And you love me, too. Secondly, and more importantly, Penny will be thrilled. Third, and this is the cheesiest, but just go with it, okay?’”

  “Okay.”

  “‘I've run out of ways to tell you I love you. I know that you don't need me to prove it to you any more than I need you to prove it to me. I know that normally, we turn up our noses at this, and say we don't need a piece of paper saying that we love each other, and all of that stuff. Now, everyone knows and loves to talk about how old I am, and you know the full extent of my past with relationships. I've told you before that I was married, and had a lot of girlfriends...’”

  “Let’s not talk about that.”

  “I know. I actually accounted for you saying that when I practiced this in front of the mirror a thousand times.”

  “That is what you were doing. I thought you were just telling yourself out loud how very attractive you are.”

  “No, I only do that after you yell at me.” He said, without missing a beat.

  I laughed, but the tears were coming now. I buried my face under his again to hide them.

  “So, here it is, the grand finale: I've told you that you're the only one there is for me. You're the one who was supposed to come along. I love you. More than any of them, and more than anything else, I love you. I always say that we were never supposed to work, and maybe if we were still on Earth, we wouldn't have. But I don't believe that. I think that wherever we go, or wherever we might have been, we would have ended up right here, with me feeling this way, and you feeling however you're feeling. Now, I feel like, even if you don't believe in it, you deserve for me to tell you in front of however many witnesses we chose to let gawk at us while we're spilling our hearts to each other that you're the love of my now immortal life, and you're the only one I want to spend thousands upon thousands of years with. You deserve to know, beyond any doubt, that I am in this with you until the end. Whatever end it may be, I am in this life with you, and only you. I am here for you, and for Penny and Violet. I can't imagine, and I don't want to imagine, anywhere else that I could be.”

  I cried harder, wanting to throw my arms around him so badly. Being a surrogate father to Penny or being a pseudo-husband to me, he was perfect, and our paths had merged forever. There had been dark spots, there had been hardship, but all I could see when I looked back was him, and a love that had expanded and grown with our hearts and also, to a level of intensity that could only be achieved by those in our species. Everything about us had evolved, even the potency of our emotions (that was why the Ares had such power), and the potency of that love would have ceased the lives of human beings; they would have been completely unable to fathom it. It was vast, complex, and infinite; it was beyond my comprehension, and I knew many things. I understood much, but I could not understand how love could be so final, so everlasting, when I had not even believed in its existence just two years earlier. He had changed me, this man who had come from nowhere and saved my life. Whom I had seen across a crowded bar but barely noticed, whom I had been forced to trust, and whom I so willingly gave my trust later. A man with whom a love never should have bloomed, but with whom love had bloomed and thrived, against the beliefs of both of us, against the beliefs and wishes of mostly everyone we knew.

  The memory of our first meeting surged between us, and I saw what he saw and felt what he felt at the time. His heart was racing as the beautiful lights from the car headlights, street lamps, and fluorescent signs enhanced some great, mysterious beauty that he saw in me. In myself, I felt the curiosity that had consumed me that night, and felt that pull towards him like an electrified magnet slowly charging, gaining life. Together, we saw our first kiss in the corridor of the ship, felt that charge ignite into a powerful explosion that was our passion and our fear, too, at those new feelings. Countless nights in Don's house passed in our minds, when the cool wind left our white curtains billowing and filled us up with the pure scent of the Pangaean air. We remembered our conversations that had ranged from the revelatory and serious to the mundane and ridiculous. We saw so many of the times we had laughed together, so many of the times I had grasped his hand or he had grasped mine when some particular story from our pasts was painful to tell, or when we had lain beside one another in bed, talking well into the night, and his arms had been tightly wrapped around me, and mine around him. Memories of various times with Penny drifted through the stream of consciousness: when she had been sick and we had sat up all night, checking her temperature and keeping her calm and comfortable, when she had slept between us in bed, sometimes holding one of my hands and one of his, when she had had a bad dream or because she did not want to be in her room alone, or when I had watched them over the top of one of my books as they drew pictures of both monsters and zombies, and fairies and princesses. All of those things, all of the seemingly insignificant moments that in actuality were so breathtakingly profound, looped around to the present, when we were pressed together, about to leave this world together. Tears were streaming from our eyes, because we had both seen it, and we had both felt everything we had ever felt all over again. After a second, he kissed me, and then, just as the first shot rang out, he said:

  “You are the greatest love of my life.”

  I jumped when the next gunshot went off and closed my eyes.

  “And you’re mine.”

  The next gunshot.

  “And I would have loved you from now… until the end of time, my love...” He kissed me, “My love…” He kissed me again, “My lo—”

  Book 3 of the Eternity series:

  Available Early 2015