by Lisa Swallow
He stood over her, jacket-less in the cold winter’s day, face flushed from running.
“Ava.”
She wished he’d stop saying her name in his caring tone. Why wasn’t he angry? Concern softened his violet-specked eyes, concern she didn’t deserve. He held a hand out and she wanted to scream at him to stop. He held a dagger in his hand.
“It’s okay, if I leave without your soul I may as well be dead. So kill me. It was always going to happen,” she said.
He stepped back and raked his hand through his hair, “Didn’t you listen to me? I can’t kill you!”
Ava turned over and pushed herself upright then tried to run. In seconds she was back on the floor, lying on her front as Keir slammed into her.
“Stop, please,” he said, kneeling.
Ava breathed in the damp smell of the frozen earth. Slowly, she turned over and looked round at him as he held his hand out again. Eyes cast down, she accepted, sat and immediately tucked her hands underneath her knees. Keir rummaged in his pocket and produced the soul crystal. He placed the dagger and crystal on the ground in front of them.
“Lowest realm of Hell?” he whispered, studying her face.
The tree branches over hung them, stark and lifeless stretching to the sky, the call of a large black bird above them breaking the silence. This was Hell. Being there, with the man she now knew she was soul-tied to, waiting to die. Tears fell from her eyes, sliding down her nose as she looked back to him. The concern in his eyes wouldn’t leave and she gritted her teeth, willing him to get angry.
“I could kill you and free your soul,” he said softly, “But I’m too selfish to do that.”
Ava gagged. “You’re selfish?”
“I can’t kill you. I want you too much.”
“So what are you going to do?” The thumping in her ears grew louder.
Keir tried to reach out to her but she shrank back, wrapping her arms around her knees.
“If I don’t kill you, I have two other choices. I can let you go, leave here, knowing you will be taken to the lowest realm of Hell once your failure is discovered. Or I can stay and let you take my soul back to the Caelestia.”
Ava blinked at him, at his skewed pragmatism. “What?”
He shifted closer and stroked the hair from her face, kissing the tears from her cheeks. Ava couldn’t move, shocked by his words.
“I want you to take my soul, take it back to them.”
Pushing him away, Ava scrambled to her feet again, mouth open in disbelief, blood pooling downwards. “No, I can’t kill you! If I could I’d have done it by now! No…all the good you do…” The world spun and she stumbled.
“Ava, you have to. I can’t live with myself if you go there. Your soul would never be free again. And it would be my fault.”
“No,” she screamed at him, “My fault! I came here to kill you - you killed all the other soul-hunters, why not me?”
“Because I love you! Because my soul is tied to yours for eternity and, if your eternity is in the lowest realm of Hell, I’ll never see you again. Your soul will never be free again. My eternity would be Hell too.”
Ava bent over, sucking in breaths of air as she sobbed, fighting down the nausea rising inside her. He was serious.
“Keir, no … ”
Her legs gave way and she started falling to the floor, sobbing as if her heart would push itself from inside. Strong arms caught and pulled Ava upright, surrounded her in a warm embrace, Keir’s quickened heartbeat in her ear.
“Ava, you have to do this.”
She rubbed her cheek against his jacket, wanting to soak in the memories his scent scattered through her mind.
Keir pulled her face up, squeezing her cheeks so she had to look into his eyes. “One day they’ll return my soul to a body, for whatever purpose they need it for, and I’ll find you. If you fail and they send you to Hell, then you’re lost to me forever. Your soul will never come back from there. This way we have a chance to be together again.”
The dagger rested on the barren floor where Keir had placed it. The gem beside scattered rainbows across the ground. Wrenching her face from his grip, Ava threw herself toward the dagger and grabbed the weapon. She backed away from him, holding the point toward her heart with shaking hands. Keir’s eyes widened and his mouth twisted in horror as he jumped toward her.
He pulled her hand away upwards, removing the point from her heart. “What are you doing?”
“I’m fucking evil,” she yelled, “I’m half-angel but I’m no better than any demon. I’ve trapped souls and given them over for a fate I don’t even understand. You’re the half-demon and you have more good inside you than I’ll ever have. You should live.”
His strong grasp pinched her wrists, crushing until she let go of the dagger. Ava cried out in pain.
“I can’t lose you,” he said through gritted teeth, “You’re not doing this.”
Ava slumped down. Reality didn’t exist anymore. From the moment she’d met him, the world shifted sideways, her need to be with him clouding her judgment. Her fate had been sealed that first day they met. And this is how it ended.
Keir pushed the soul gem into her unwilling hand and curled her fingers around it. She looked at it blankly. The world shifted again, growing smaller as her mind started to blacken toward unconsciousness.
Keir pressed the hard handle of the dagger back into Ava’s hand and squeezed his powerful fingers around, holding their hands together. The sun bounced off the dagger, half-blinding her. He shuffled closer, the length of the dagger between them, pointing toward his chest. Ava tried twisting her hand away from him, to move the dagger from between them but his grip strengthened. Ava clawed at his fingers, unable to pull the weapon from his grasp. She swore at him, cursed his strength, unable to pry his fingers away or move from the grip he had across her shoulders.
“I love you, Ava,” he whispered, pressing the point of the dagger toward himself, “Don’t blame yourself, I choose this.”
The dagger plunged into Keir’s chest as he crushed her to him in an embrace, which would haunt Ava forever. Warmth seeped across her hand, trapped between her body and Keir’s. His grip loosened and he slumped backwards, lifeless. Ava screamed and the birds in the tree above flew into the sky. Blood pumped from the wound in Keir’s chest, as she dragged the dagger from him, shaking and sobbing. The soul crystal fell from her hand and rolled across the ground.
“No … Keir!”
She tore at her hair, smearing her cheek with blood, screaming his name until her voice wouldn’t come anymore. Desperately, she tried to stem the flow from his chest, watching his face paling as the blood poured to the ground around them. She repeated his name like a mantra, begging him not to leave her, gulping in air.
Keir gasped and for one precious moment Ava thought he was back. Until she saw the white soul snaking from his mouth, creating a halo shaped cloud around his head. The translucence of his soul shone, unlike the gray human souls she’d released from demons. The cloud refracted sunlight into rainbows, shimmering in the air above them. She grabbed back the crystal, hiding the gem in her palm - his soul could go free instead.
The soul twisted toward the gem in her hand and she dropped it in alarm, wiping her bloody hands on her jeans. Before she had a chance to decide, the soul darted into the crystal, and disappeared. It was over.
Ava’s screaming corrupted the tranquility of the quiet lakeside, the alarmed birds circled around her and Keir. At the end of her new world, she leaned over Keir and pulled her hair. Pain. She deserved pain. Ava picked up the gem, her one part of Keir she still had, and ran.
Chapter 22
Ava paced around the edge of the campus, winding in and out of the barren trees, looking for somewhere to hide. She couldn’t go back to the dorm. Couldn’t risk somebody seeing her covered in blood and hysterical. The morning turned into afternoon, sun high above her new, dark world. Ava gripped the gem, fingers curling around her remaining part of Keir, as wav
es of screams threatened to crash out of her. But, in her numb horror she couldn’t make a sound. Hours passed before she sank to the floor, exhausted, finally crying her desperation into the ground.
Arrogance, and then fear, had prevented her admitting to herself what was obvious. They were soul-tied. She’d denied this, lied to herself even when memories of Keir kept her going in the horror of the dark cell. Every decision she’d made, since Keir touched her, centered on her feelings for him. She’d denied the obvious to herself - every fiber of her wanted him, to be with him, share everything about him. The evening in the alleyway, pressed together, their souls had recognized each other and sealed Ava into her fate with Keir. The day he spared her life. And now the decision had cost him his own.
Ava curled in a ball beneath a tree, too exhausted to move. The sobbing stopped as quickly as it came. Immobilized, Keir’s death replayed over an over in her mind, torturing her to stay conscious. When would Darius send someone for her? She prayed it would be soon.
Somebody screamed, and blows rained into Ava’s back. The pain didn’t filter into her numb body but Ava covered her head with her arms, as her attacker knelt and continued the assault. She deserved this. She hoped they killed her.
“Where the fuck is it? What have you done with it?” screamed an angry voice.
Dahlia.
Ava turned her face around and saw Dahlia’s fist coming toward her, flinching as Dahlia’s hand connected with her eye.
“Dahlia, stop it.”
Jack.
Jack yanked her away by the shoulders and Dahlia fell backwards.
“You bitch, you fucking bitch. You did this to him! I always knew you would!” Eyes filled with shining hatred, Dahlia tried to get closer to Ava, but behind her, Jack encircled Dahlia with his arms. He pinned Dahlia’s hands by her side, looking at Ava through narrowed eyes.
Ava remained still. “Kill me, I don’t care anymore.”
“He thought you cared for him, he fucking loved you!” Dahlia’s voice cracked.
The ground. That’s all Ava wanted. If she stayed there long enough the earth might open up and claim her. They were one - cold and hard.
“Well, they’re coming for you,” Dahlia’s mouth twisted mockingly, “You don’t know what you’ve just done. And I don’t mean Darius.”
“I don’t care.” She wasn’t there. This wasn’t real.
“You will.”
Ava didn’t move. The Fated world flashed across her mind, paradise compared to where she was at that moment. The ignorance of that life had been blissful; fighting for a free life had led to Hell.
“I’ll wait with her,” said Jack to Dahlia, “You go and see if he’s still there.”
“He won’t be. I saw the blood. We’ve lost him now.”
Ava continued sobbing.
“Shut the fuck up,” yelled Dahlia.
“I didn’t stab him! He did it to himself.”
Dahlia laughed at her, “Right. Sure. You’re not worth sacrificing a soul for.”
Jack put his hand on Dahlia’s shoulder. “They’re soul-tied, too, I told you.”
Dahlia shrugged him off. “Not true. You don’t take the soul of someone you’re tied to.”
Dahlia knelt on the floor next to Ava, face close to hers, eyes frightening her. How did she ever think Dahlia was a mouse? “He should’ve killed you. Now he’s lost.”
“He’s dead,” Ava said, tears flowing again.
Dahlia got to her feet and Ava prepared herself for another attack. “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?” cried Dahlia, pulling at her hair. “He’s a Nephilim! You don’t just kill them so easily - he’s not dead - he just has no soul anymore. And to him that’s even worse than if you had killed him.”
Ava’s world turned further away from her reality. She fought back the bile rising in her throat. “He’s alive?”
“Yeah, but he’s not Keir anymore, not the one you know,” Dahlia spat.
Blackness clouded Ava’s vision, her chest crushing the breath from her. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll see. And when the others see…well, you always wanted to know who they were.” Dahlia laughed bitterly then lurched toward Ava.
Jack held an arm out to restrain Dahlia and she slumped to the floor, tears of her own running down her cheeks.
Jack pulled Ava to her feet, his ice-cold hand gripping her arm, “You can’t stay here,” he said as she stumbled against him, clutching the crystal in her pocket.
“Where is he?” whispered Ava. “Where did he go?”
“He’ll be going back,” said Dahlia, looking up from beneath long brown hair spilling over her face.
“Back where?” asked Ava.
Dahlia breathed heavily, mouth set in a hard line. “To the other Nephilim. The ones like Zach.”
Jack held Ava upright, preventing her from sinking back to the ground at the realization of what she’d done. Dahlia struggled back to her feet, pulled her hand back and slapped Ava across the face. The crack echoed through the blackening afternoon. “I have wanted to do that since the moment I met you. You’re an evil bitch.”
Ava looked at her through the tears, agreement in her eyes.
*
Ava had no idea where she was. The basement room holding her was filled with packing boxes, the floor carpeted and thin curtains drawn across a small window high in the wall. Suburban. She groaned and rubbed her back.
Shortly after Dahlia’s assault, two tall men came for her. They bundled her into a black sedan with dark windows, and took her away. In her disconnected state, she mechanically complied. Their faces blurred - one had dark hair, the other blond. Hard, sapphire Nephilim eyes filtered into her memories of the day. The sole color in her black and white blur of pain and grief.
The two men held her down and cut the tracking device from under her skin. She never screamed, every iota of pain she suffered she deserved. Keir’s blood stained her hands and clothes and she pleaded with them to let her wash her herself but they left her. Nobody returned. Ava drifted in and out of dreamless sleep; the nightmares awaited her when she awoke.
Eventually a man came back into the room, the tall men with curly blond hair wearing jeans and a checked shirt open over a plain white T-shirt. His height and eyes confirmed he was a Nephilim, although his countenance reminded Ava of a Caelestia. He regarded her for a few moments before beckoning her to him silently. Ava shrank away, hugging her knees and hesitated.
The man smiled serenely at her. “I won’t hurt you again.”
He took her through the house, an ordinary home with pictures on the walls, coats hanging on a rack. The sun shone through the kitchen window, across the small wooden table he indicated she should sit at. The other man sat at the table opposite the doorway. He was as tall as the blond Nephilim, with brown hair middle parted and framing his angular face. The beauty of his features were marred by suppressed anger, full mouth pulled into a tight line.
She sat uncertainly on the chair furthest from him. He leaned across the table to her. “You have blood on your hands, soul-hunter.”
Ava looked at Keir’s dried blood trapped beneath her fingernails. “Please. I want to wash them, get changed,” she said meekly.
“In good time. I wanted you to see what you have done,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling it across the table.
She looked to the window and closed her eyes against the blood and the blindingly bright, winter sun. Her mind tripped back to the brightness of Darius’s world. The world of the Free. She swallowed down the lump growing in her throat.
The blond man sat besides the other and rested his palms on the table. The two Nephilim studied her, not speaking. She was on trial.
Her eyes darted between them. “Are you going to kill me?”
The blond man shook his head. “We need Keir back.”
“D
o you still have his soul?” snapped the brown-haired man.
Ava slid her hand toward her pocket, the hard crystal warmed by her body. “I need it,” she said, wondering why they hadn’t taken Keir’s soul from her when she was unconscious.
“I said she should keep the crystal, Eli,” said the blond man.
“No, Asher. I said it stays with us,” said Eli firmly.
“Please…” whispered Ava, gripping the crystal, tears springing to her eyes, “I said I need it.”
“What for? To return to Darius? With your secrets? No. His soul stays with us.” Eli stood and moved to her, hand held out. “Give the crystal to me or I will take it from you.”
The crystal dug into her hand. Keir. Her piece of Keir. The aggression in Eli’s stance frightened her.
“How do I know you work with Keir and not Zach?”
Eli sucked breath through his teeth. “How dare you!” he said, seething anger and she recoiled as he leaned toward her.
“He never mentioned any of you by name…”
“He told you about us,” Asher said rubbing his temples, “When?”
“Recently.” The night I killed him, she thought, fighting back the hitch in her voice.
Eli turned around, strode to the window. “Unbelievable.”
“He never told me much,” she offered, “That’s why I don’t know who you are.”
“If we were allied with Zach you’d be dead,” said Eli turning back to her, “Now give me his soul.”
“The soul crystal is safest with us,” said Asher, “Until we solve the problem of how we return his soul to him.” Ava’s grip relaxed a little. “You have to agree we are more able to keep it safe than you. We’re stronger,” he said.
“Is it possible?” she said in a low voice, “Can you return his soul to him?”
“We’re gathering information now,” said Eli, “This has never happened before.”
Ava hung her head and took the gem from her pocket with shaking hands. They were right. His soul was safer with them. She had no right to his soul. She placed the crystal on the table and slowly disentangled her fingers from its warmth, watching the rainbows cross the walls. Eli and Asher looked at the gem with undisguised awe.