Lucretia stared at him, emotionless.
“But hey, at least you and your brothers had parents. My dad was dead, so my mom worked all the time. She has worked sixty hours each week for the past ten years. You know where she’s at right now? On vacation. The first vacation away from us in ten years. But the sad thing is, she’s never around anyway. We pretty much raised ourselves.” Logan exaggerated in a major way, but Lucretia didn’t know that. He turned his gaze upon his siblings.
Tyler hung his head.
Tears streamed down Ashleigh’s face and she shook her head, rivulets slipping from her chin. “Why are you saying this?”
“Don’t lie, Ashleigh,” he said, anger boosting his voice. “Not now. Not when I’m going to die. Let’s be honest, huh? Mom was never here. Sure, she may have paid for food, your clothes, and everything in this house, but we didn’t have parents. We fended for ourselves.”
“You’re lying,” Tyler said more than grunted.
“Am I?” Logan asked. An unfeeling smile hit his lips. “Really, Tyler?”
Jocelyn’s eyes bulged as she mouthed the words, “What are you doing?”
Logan lifted an eyebrow and placed a finger to his lips before pretending to scratch an itch in that exact spot. Then he looked at the witch again. “You did that, Lucretia. It’s your fault we didn’t have any parents.”
“I’m not responsible for—”
“Yes, you are.” He let that simmer between them. “And now, you want me to die to heap even more anger and sadness on my brother and sister. You set a curse in motion, and if you want to pretend that you haven’t killed my father and those before him, that’s fine. But before I slice into my arm, I want you to admit one thing to me…”
“What’s that?” she asked, her tone no longer containing the same justifiable quality it held mere moments ago.
“That you destroy families. Not just one, Lucretia. Over the course of one hundred years, you’ve destroyed three families.”
It took her a moment to respond. “I did no such—”
“You did! Be honest with yourself. Admit the truth, and I will cut into my fucking arm. Say it. Admit that you destroyed three families. And after I end my life, maybe another accident will happen, and Ashleigh or Tyler will need to commit suicide, and by then, maybe you’ll have destroyed a fourth family. But right now, I want you to admit the truth.”
Lucretia broke eye contact with him. She looked down and off to the side. “I never…” She stopped speaking again.
Even though Logan didn’t look at his siblings, he could feel their fear, their confusion. It weighed heavily on him, but it also gave him the strength to keep speaking from the animosity in his heart. “I’m waiting, Lucretia. Tell the truth.”
“I didn’t,” she started, “that’s not what I—”
“But that’s what you did. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Are you going to stand there with your smug attitude and look my brother and sister in the eye…Well, go on! Look at them. Not me. Them!”
Her head slowly craned to the right as though a force greater than her own self-restraint compelled her to peer at his siblings. And that’s when Logan saw it, a glimmer of moisture in Lucretia’s eyes, the first sign of something other than just pain: remorse. Joy burst in him for the briefest moment, but he couldn’t let that emotion grip him. He’d come a long way, but he hadn’t reached his goal, so he shoved that feeling deep down.
“Look at the fear in their eyes. At the pain. Are you going to tell me they look any different than the night that fucking piece of shit, Abner Pryce, killed your brothers? And don’t get me started on the age difference. As horrible as that was, and it’s downright sickening that they will never get the justice they deserve, your brothers had a chance to live with their parents and their sister for almost twenty years. Those children right there, the ones standing right in front of you, didn’t have nearly that long. Their mother was practically non-existent in their lives. And now you’re going to kill their brother!”
Lucretia lowered her gaze, twin tears slipped down her cheeks, the movement seemingly forcing her head up again. She locked eyes on Logan. “No.” She gave a firm shake of the head.
Rage rushed into Logan’s heart. He angled the knife so that the blade’s tip poked into his flesh. A rivulet of crimson appeared underneath the knife’s edge. “Go on, Lucretia. Just say the words, and I’ll give you what you want. You can continue to destroy this family. Admit the truth. Tell them what you do. Tell them what you are.”
“You won’t make me feel…” A surge of moisture rushed into Lucretia’s eyes. Her uncompromising glare faltered, as if long-lost memories rose to the front of her mind. Her lips quivered, contorted. Tears shimmered. Her shoulders crimped inward. Her mouth opened. The long line of saliva that clung from her upper and lower teeth snapped, and a hoarse howl that could only be born of anguish and regret left her mouth. The knives fell from her hands.
Lucretia’s body collapsed in on her as she weakly drifted to the ground until her knees smacked the ground with a thud. She hunched over, placing her forehead on the ground between her hands. A wail of pain exited her lips.
And Logan finally got what he’d only now realized what Lucretia had long needed: an opportunity to see past her own hurt to acknowledge the suffering she’d brought unto others.
She took in a long breath and sobbed upon exhaling. “I’m…sorry.” More sobs racked her, forcing her back to shudder and quake. “I didn’t…I couldn’t…I’m so sorry!”
Logan, drowning out everything around him, removed the blade from his flesh and smeared the blood across his forearm. He stepped over to Lucretia, knelt down beside her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Do the right thing, Lucretia. End this. Break this curse.”
She sniffled, inhaled, and nodded. A sob escaped her, but she cut it short. She opened her mouth and said, “Remove the suffering and end the pain. The curse on the Pryce Family shall not remain.”
Hearing those words, Logan sucked in a full breath of air, looking from his siblings’ hopeful expressions to Jocelyn’s wide eyes.
“Logan?” The voice came from the woman on the floor, but the tone sounded less like Lucretia and more like…
“Eloise?” he asked urgently, grasping her hands and helping her sit upright.
Tears streaked her face and a gentle, quivering smile hovered on her lips. “I’m back!”
He threw his arms around her back and grasped her tightly. “I’m so sorry. I was so selfish. I shouldn’t have pushed you into this.”
“It’s okay.”
He wanted to trust her nonjudgmental tone, but he couldn’t forgive himself. “Lucretia could have…” He clenched his eyes shut. It hurt too much to even think about losing Eloise.
“I was all right the entire time,” she said.
“I can’t believe I even suggested that you—”
“Hey,” Eloise said, pulling back to place her palms against Logan’s cheeks. “You know how a spirit’s emotions can affect those around them?”
The intensity in her eyes silenced his doubts. “Yes.”
“She was inside my body, so I decided to use my thoughts and feelings against her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I knew she wouldn’t leave my body without trying to kill you, so I made her think that I was powerless. When you began leaning on her sense or morality, I pushed my own thoughts and feelings onto Lucretia. It broke past all of her anger and made her think about what she’d done. Once that happened, she felt such a profound sense of remorse that she kind of broke inside.”
While he still couldn’t look past his narrow-minded approach to the problem, Logan took some measure of consolation in knowing that he hadn’t put Eloise’s life in danger. But then he recalled that Eloise could say she had booted Lucretia from her body, but she couldn’t prove it. Feeling powerless to get the confirmation he needed, Logan looked up at Jocelyn, but she also wore an uncertain expression.
/> “We need…” His voice cracked as he turned to Ashleigh. “…evidence that it worked.”
His sister sniffled and cleared the tears from her face. Then she exhaled. “Kiss her.”
“Huh?” Logan asked, confused, thinking she chose a poor time to crack jokes. “I don’t—”
Ashleigh’s grin widened as she wrapped both arms across her chest. “Lucretia hates you, so she’d never kiss you. If you want to find out if the curse worked, you need to kiss her.”
It was the simplest yet most obvious explanation in the world, and Logan’s world had been so shaken that it took him a moment to make sense of it. He looked back to Eloise.
“Logan?” she asked, a cheerful smile making her lips part.
He loved hearing her say his name. It felt ordinary yet extraordinary at the same time. Like only this woman had the right to pronounce his name on a daily basis for the rest of his life. That both stunned and pleased him.
Logan stared into her eyes, praying that Eloise had indeed returned. He moved in. His gaze flickered to those luscious lips. Everything stilled around him. All that mattered was this moment and this woman. Logan pressed his lips to hers. Their eagerness and softness tore him up inside in the best possible way, and he took her mouth with reckless abandon, unable to keep himself from wanting another taste.
“That’s enough,” Ashleigh said in an even tone.
Eloise made a soft moan in the back of her throat.
“Okay, guys.” Jocelyn started laughing. “Let’s keep it PG-13. There are kids here.”
“Yeah,” Ashleigh said, “turn around, Ty.”
Their intrusion broke through to Logan, and he separated from Eloise, but he couldn’t stop looking at that cute smile of hers.
“It got cold for a moment,” Ashleigh said, “and the pressure in the room seemed off, but it’s back to normal again.”
“That’s because Lucretia left,” Eloise said, biting the lower portion of her mouth, still staring at Logan.
“I’m not convinced yet.” Logan stared at her lips. “We need to test it again. You know, just to be sure.”
“What?” Tyler asked, exasperated. “Nothing happened. You’re good.”
Eloise shook her head and appeared uncertain. “It’s best to double-check.”
Logan drew closer, pressed his lips to hers, and deepened their kiss, their embrace taking him to places he’d never before experienced. When his phone vibrated in his pants pocket, he planned to ignore it, but it vibrated again. Annoyed, separated from Eloise, pulled it out, and discovered that his mother had texted. “It’s Mom,” he said, excitement hitting his pitch. He started reading and decided to paraphrase. “She just flew into O’Hare. She’ll be home in an hour.”
“Woo-hoo!” Tyler hollered, which made Ashleigh and Jocelyn laugh.
“You know what?” Logan said to Eloise. “Let’s pretend that we never got Mom’s message, and when she comes in, I can introduce you, and then we’ll kiss just to see what she—”
“No way,” she said, looking into his eyes and tapping his lower lip with a fingertip.
“Phew,” Ashleigh said, relieved. “You would have given her a heart attack.”
“Instead,” Eloise countered with devilish glee, “when she opens the door, we’ll already be kissing.”
“Yes!” Logan said with a mischievous grin. “I knew you were a keeper the moment I saw you.”
Author Note
I hope you enjoyed my novel. Please consider leaving a review for The Descendants. Your review is invaluable in helping to build my career. It lets me know what you like (or dislike) about my work, so I can give you more of what you want (and less of what you don’t!)
Subscribe to my newsletter and get The Denouement (two short stories in the worlds of The Presence & The Damned). These stories are available exclusively to newsletter subscribers.
The Descendants Page 25