THE TEARS FLOW like small rivers now. I sink back to the ground, and Kai comes with me, still clutching my hands to his chest. I feel his heartbeat under my skin.
So vital.
So life-affirming.
That beat of life is in direct contrast to his words.
He wants to die.
My blood screams with something I’m not familiar with. Maybe it’s horror. Maybe it’s an agony so intense it needs to lash out and punish my body. Whatever it is, I’m not brave enough to take it on. I have to flush it out.
Every instinct inside me wants to pull away from Kai. To run. That’s what the old Kinsley would have already done. She would have run and dove head into the first pill bottle she could find.
But I’m weighed down again. Just like when Reyna was possessing my body. Something foreign is inside me, and it won’t let me up.
I can’t escape.
I shake my head, avoiding his gaze. It doesn’t help anything. I can feel his stare.
“Kinsley?” His voice is soft. I want to wrap myself up in it and hide from everything he’s telling me.
Instead, I force my gaze toward his. “No.”
His face falls. “Kinsley…”
“No!” I scream the word in his face.
He doesn’t look surprised. Doesn’t even flinch.
“I will not! I can’t kill you!” I rip my hands away from his chest and scramble to my feet.
His jeans rustle behind me as he stands up too.
“I’m already dead, Kinsley. Worse than dead.”
I shake my head. “No. No!” My hands form trembling balls at my sides. “No, you can wake up anytime. Modern medicine is… No, you’ll wake up. You will.”
He sighs but doesn’t say anything.
I close my eyes and try to keep myself from bawling.
“Yeah, that’s what my mother says. Even though the doctors have told her otherwise. That I am brain dead and that being dead and brain dead is essentially the same thing.”
I shake my head, unwilling to hear him. “You have a heartbeat.”
“I have a bypass machine.”
A whimper escapes my lips. Then Kai is in front of me, staring down at me with searching eyes. He doesn’t look angry or scared. He’s the picture of patience. A portrait of love.
After a few seconds, he says, “Will you hear me out?”
I want to say no. I want him to magic us back to before all of this awfulness came out of his mouth. Before all of this truth, but I know I can’t. I have to hear him out.
Reluctantly, I nod.
“It’s been hell.” His voice breaks on the last word. “I’m trapped, Kin. And every day, you know what I do?”
I just stare up at him, the giant from before ripping my bloody red heart in two.
“I lie there, and I listen. I hear my mother crying. Day after day. I watch my family falling apart at home. My dad drinking. Them both ignoring my thirteen-year-old sister who wants to move on but feels too guilty to do that. I relive their grief day after day. No, it’s worse than that.”
He shakes his head and stares into a faraway place.
“It’s not even days and nights. There is no reprieve. It’s like being stuck in a constant loop full of the most unimaginable pain. I see the night I was hit. I see myself on the operating table. The look on my mother’s face when she arrived at the hospital. When my sister locked herself into a stall at school and swallowed a bunch of my father’s pain medication.”
Tears pool in his eyes. “I have become nothing more than dead weight crushing the life out of everyone I love. I don’t want that!”
The tears stream down his cheeks, and in that moment, I would do anything to take his pain away.
“And I’m not waking up,” he continues. “They’re going broke, tapping into my sister’s college fund to hold on to the memory of their dead son.”
His words hit me like a haymaker in the gut. I double over, and he reaches out and holds me up. He’s trying to give me strength. After everything I’ve done, he’s the stronger one.
“And it’s just not science, Kin. I have the power of revival. I know a dead thing when I see it. For the past year, I’ve lived inside a dead thing. That body, laying there in the hospital, it isn’t me.” His jaw clenches, and he takes in a shaky breath. “Please tell me you understand that. Death would be a welcome blessing. It’s my only out. It’s the only way out for the people I love.”
I swallow and stare up into his eyes. Eyes that have seen the worst in me and still managed to find love for all my endless flaws.
“I don’t know if I’m brave enough, Kai.” Another rush of tears stream down my face.
“If you weren’t, I wouldn’t love you.”
“But I did this to you. I can’t give up on you.”
He smiles and cups my face. “I don’t want you to think of it that way. You, Kinsley Lane, gave me the love of my life before I died. Before you, I’ve never felt anything like this. I came to you tonight fueled with hate, and now I’m full of love.” He shakes his head. “Now I’m ready, Kinsley. I can’t go back to that body, not after tonight. Not after the magic I shared with you.”
I bite down on my lower lip hard enough to draw blood. After several moments, I say, “And what about me?”
The smile vanishes from his face, and he sighs. Reaching out, he pulls me close and buries his face in my hair.
“You are going to forgive yourself. Then you are going to enjoy being alive. When the memory of me gets to be too much, you’ll remember the touch. And one day, you will love again.”
I shake my head. “Never.”
“Of course you will.” He squeezes me closer. “Until then, I’ll be there for you. We both know better than anyone that death is not the end.”
I shove my face into his chest and sob until there is nothing left. My body goes numb, and my thoughts are blank slates. Finally, when I’ve cried enough, I pull away and peer up at him.
I nod weakly. “Okay, Kai.” The second nod is stronger, more sure. “I’ll do it.”
22
KAI TELEPORTS US into the room of spiritual attunement. The familiar sound of its rushing water and fairies buzzing through the air meets my ears.
I stare at him, wide-eyed. “Are you crazy?”
He winks. “Depends on who you ask.”
I stare down at myself. I’m dressed in a long, silky white gown with sheer sleeves. It’s also backless. I reach up and touch my hair, pulling out a small, white flower. Lifting an eyebrow, my gaze shifts to him.
He looks hotter than ever in a matching tuxedo with a silver vest. My mouth waters. Even his hair, that’s been tousled sexily across his head, is slicked back. He is so edible-looking, I’m momentarily distracted by the fact he teleported us to the most dangerous place in the city.
For me, at least.
“Why are we back here? You do remember Victoria going Norman Bates on me, right?”
He laughs. “That’s a good one.”
I plant my hands on my hips. “Kai, this isn’t funny.”
He grins and places his finger against my lips. “Just wait for it.”
Behind me, footsteps pad toward us. I spin around in a panic, holding up my fists, ready to beat Victoria off again.
But it isn’t Victoria. It’s Mac, dressed in a long purple robe and a matching top hat. My heart clenches in my chest, and I jump between them.
* * *
Holding my head toward Mac, I say, “Don’t hurt him!”
Behind me, Kai laughs. I glance over my shoulder with a frown.
“Don’t worry, Miss Lane.” Mac produces a heavy-looking book from inside his robes.
“He’s here to perform the ceremony, Kin.”
I scoff. “What?” I shake my head. “No. No fucking way.” I point a finger at Mac. “This asshat tried to give my life to a dead chick.” I glare at Kai. “Some husband.”
The corner of Kai’s mouth turns down into a half-frown. “Well, his
mother was really driving him to do it.”
I stare at him.
Kai sighs and reaches out toward me. Then he pulls me into a corner with tall ferns that stretch toward the glass ceiling.
“Look, I know this isn’t ideal,” he says.
I continue to stare.
“But we need an officiant to make this legal. And he’s the only one I know.”
I cross my arms over my chest.
“Look, Kin. We don’t have much time. Please just do this. For me.” He leans forward to whisper in my ear. “If you want, I’ll create you a little hex to screw with him, but for right now…we need him.”
I sigh and smooth down my dress. “Fine. We’re only doing this for legal reasons, anyway. Guess it doesn’t matter who joins us.”
His face falls. “You think…you think I want to do this just for legal reasons?”
I shrug.
His nostrils flare. “I’m a witch, Kinsley. If I wanted you to simply pull the plug, I could spell you, and you’d walk in there and do it.”
I wince.
“We’re doing this because I love you. I take this quite seriously. And…and because I want the person that releases me to love me as much as I love them.”
My heart flutters in my chest, but a sadness settles there too. I swallow and glance away so I don’t start crying again. I’ve cried enough for a week.
“Okay.” I smile up at him. “Let’s do this.”
He takes my hand, and we walk back over to Mac.
“Everything settled?” Mac asks, taking out six pieces of red rope and handing them to us.
I take one end of the ropes while Kai takes the other.
“Let’s do this,” I say again, not taking my eyes off Kai.
Mac clears his throat and starts the ceremony.
“Know now that since your lives have crossed, you have formed ties between each other. The promises you make today and the ties that are bound here will cross the years and will greatly strengthen your union. With full awareness, know that you declare your intent to be handfasted before your friends and family. Do you still seek to enter this ceremony?”
Somehow, after everything, as I stare up into Kai’s eyes, a lightness enters me. Like I was supposed to be here tonight, and I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I even know the words to utter.
Together, Kai and I respond, “Yes, we seek to enter.”
Our eyes never leave the other’s as Mac goes through the rest of the ceremony. The ropes bind our hands together. Mac blesses us in oils and cleanses us in smoke.
The last words he speaks will forever be written on my heart.
“The knots of this binding are not formed by these chords but rather by your vows. For as always, you hold in your own hands the making or breaking of this union.”
It’s in our hands. I make the decision right then and there that our connection will never sever, and even if I do love again, I will know it’s because he taught me how.
Kai lifts me into his arms and teleports us back to his magic room. He spins me around, and I giggle, baffled that I can still find some joy. He lays me down on the bed and settles in beside me.
“I want to show you something.”
I nod, wrapping the chords that represent our union in my hands.
He waves his hand in the air, and a rectangle of light is projected on the opposite wall. There, a little boy, no more than seven or eight, swims into focus like something on a movie theater screen.
White light shoots from his hands, and in the background, a comely woman claps.
“That’s wonderful, Kai!” the woman says. “Mommy is so proud.”
Tears burn in my eyes. The pictures run together like a fast-playing movie. It’s Kai. It’s his life. Him swinging a baseball bat. Him making a cake for his little sister’s birthday. Him taking a girl I’m immediately jealous of to the prom.
It’s his life.
Kai wipes my tears away. “I promised that you’d know me by the time the night was over.” He slips out of his jacket then reaches out and slides my dress off my shoulders. “Those are all my life’s memories. Everything that made me, me.”
As he lays me down, I choke out, “I love you, Kai.”
He kisses me slowly. The sensation of weightlessness enters my body.
“I love you too, Kinsley. Forever.” He enters me, and I close my eyes, committing the feel of him to memory. “For the rest of my life.”
We make love until the cruel sun rises high in the sky, bidding the night farewell.
He starts to flicker in my arms.
“It’s six twenty-five.”
I’m not strong enough to bear the weight of this sadness, this coming emptiness that will be life without him. So I cling to him for the pathetic amount of time we have left.
“I love you,” he says again.
I nod through my tears and cling to him harder.
“Thank you,” he whispers against my ear, his form coming into and out of focus like a bad connection.
I bite down on my lip.
There is nothing to say. Nothing to express my love. Or my fear. Or my sorrow.
“Remember the touch.”
They are his last words. I squeeze my eyes shut, afraid to open them. I can feel the lack of his presence in the room. Slowly and with my entire body shaking, I open my eyes.
All that’s left of him are the handfasting chords and the quartz crystal rose that brought me to him earlier that night.
When I snatch it up, a tingle races up my arm.
It feels like his touch.
I bury my face in the sheets and cry.
IV
The Morning After
I DON’T KNOW how I get out of bed, but I do. I don’t know how I get my feet to move across the floor, to go outside, or even get behind the wheel of my car, but I do.
The sun blares down through my windshield as I drive through the city. The sounds of it waking up bubble around me. Horns honk. Tires screech. People talk too loudly into their cellphones.
I tune it all out and glance at the papers in my passenger seat. It’s eight o’clock. His entire family will be at the hospital, so that’s where I’m heading. I should probably go home and change first, but I know if I do, I won’t leave my apartment for days. Then I’ll put this off for weeks, and those weeks will bleed into months.
And my cowardice will leave him trapped. I can’t do that.
I park into the first space I find. The lot is already full of cars. People dash around, holding flowers and balloons. Curious eyes drift my way as I march past them all, my papers clutched in my hand and making ugly, after-crying noises.
I go up to the fifth floor. Kai’s floor.
Right away, I see them. Kai’s mother and sister. I recognize them from his memories. Sucking in a deep breath, I march over to them.
His mother looks up at me with Kai’s blue eyes. They are wide with alarm.
She looks around, like maybe I’ve mistaken her for someone else. When I don’t move, she clears her throat.
“May I help you, dear?” Her eyes scan me up and down.
I’m sure I look crazy as hell.
Nurse Maria passes by and raises an eyebrow. “Hello, Miss Lane. You’re early.”
I attempt a smile and give her a wave. She glances at the three of us then moves on down the hall.
I clear my throat and focus on Mrs. Wilson. I decide there is no easy way to do this, so I rip the band aid off. I take in another breath then blurt out everything. Kai’s wishes, in his own words. I plead with her to do what I don’t even want done.
Her eyes go wider and wider. Then she’s standing up. Then she’s in my face with flared nostrils and her hands balled at her sides.
I don’t stop talking. I keep going. I shove the papers in her arms. I tell her if she doesn’t do it, gods help me, I will.
She doesn’t say anything at first. She falls into her chair, and Lana, Kai’s little sister, places an arm arou
nd her. Mrs. Wilson ignores her, then Lana stares up at me.
“So, you’re my…brother’s wife. And he married you…while in a coma?”
I nod. “That’s right. It’s very nice to meet you.” I hold my hand out. “I guess we’re kind of sisters.”
Lana stares at my hand like it’s a flesh-eating spider.
I guess I do look and sound crazy as hell.
Mrs. Wilson is yelling in the phone. I didn’t even notice her pull it out. Lana is trying to calm her down. Then Mrs. Wilson is yelling in my face and pacing the hall. Twenty minutes later, her husband and a team of lawyers show up.
We all sit tensely around a conference table with the hospital administrator. She’s a squat, shaved-headed black woman with a no nonsense scowl. Unlike everyone at the table, she is very unemotional.
Finally, she shakes her head at Mrs. Wilson. “I’m sorry. These papers are legal. You no longer have a say here.”
She shoots out of her chair. “I’m his mother!”
“Yes, and she…” The administrator gestures toward me. “Is his wife.”
I nod, standing up as calmly as I can manage. “Good, I want to do this. Now. Like, right now.”
The room goes silent. I feel Mrs. Wilson staring daggers.
I meet her gaze, and my lip trembles. “I’m so sorry. But he’s not alive. You have to let him go.”
She throws her purse, and I duck out of the way. The contents spill out.
She rushes at me. “Get out! Just get the hell out!”
I nod. “I really am sorry.”
Then I turn and head back down the hallway. I stop in front of Kai’s room, and for the first time since I hit him with my car, I enter.
I SIT AT his bedside and take his hand. He was right. This body, this shell of his spirit, isn’t him. Suddenly, the thought of him remaining like this a second longer is worse than losing him.
Hours tick by. The doctors come and ask me if I’m ready. I keep telling them no.
I do all the things I imagined doing when I was too scared to come in. I read to him. I play his playlist. I talk about our night together. Our magical night.
Wicked Legends: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection Page 190