Does Alek feel this, too? He slides his lips from mine and nudges my cheek, sighing quietly. "I hope I'm doing the right thing."
"What do you mean?" I peel his arms from around me and rest against the wall, studying him for clues. "Are we trapped? Will we be here forever now?"
"I'm getting us out," he says, but he's not happy.
"How?"
"Do you know who sent you here?" he asks.
"I presume Finn; I felt him take the energy."
He hesitates. "Yeah. And when we go back, he might do it again."
"Then why try? We can stay here?"
"Really, Rose?" he gestures around us. "Here? The Void? Hell?"
"Hell?"
"Finn got rid of you because you're his mistake and that's where we belong. But we're being given a chance to go back and keep fighting."
All I can hear in my mind is the word Hell. "So I am a demon?" I whisper.
"No. We're not demons! We're Between!"
"Are we? Isn't that just a species of demon? Don't we want exactly what they do?" I slide to the floor and wrap my arms around my head. Hell.
Alek crouches in front of me. "We're not demons."
"We are! What are demons, Alek? Things that want to escape an eternity in Hell - their only option, if they can't go wherever Reapers take them. Over - what is that? Heaven? Is that where Reapers come from?" I run my hands over my hair; I never believed in Heaven or Hell before. "Whatever, we want to escape an eternity trapped and can never be good enough to pass Over. So yes, Alek, we're demons."
Alek stands. "I don't think your soul is as damaged as mine."
"Do you know something I don’t?" I ask him.
Footsteps echo along the hallway; I can't tell which direction they're coming from. A short, balding man dressed in a brown suit scrutinises Alek.
"Are you Alek?"
"Yeah."
"Perfect. My name is Eric. Come on.” He appraises me. “Are you bringing her?"
Something in the way Alek refuses to meet my eyes, in the strange aura surrounding this man, sets me on high alert. Man. He's probably not even that. "Bringing me where?"
"Home," says Alek.
"It's that simple?" I say doubtfully.
"For you," smiles Eric, showing yellowing teeth.
"And Alek?" He's staring at the floor. "Alek?"
"We have to take someone with us," he mumbles.
The man claps his hands together. "Chop, chop! Come on!"
Something is very wrong here. Alek comes for me then someone comes for both of us. I know Alek well enough to sense his wariness. "No." I turn away from them.
Alek walks around and dips his head to look at me. "You have to come with me. Please. I'm doing this to help you."
"Doing what, exactly?"
"There's someone who needs a lift to the living, and I agreed to do it."
"Someone? Who?" Alek shifts his look back to the tiled floor. “Who, Alek?”
"It doesn't matter. All that matters is you get out of here."
I step back. I don’t know what’s happening but I’m certain whatever it is, I don’t want to be involved. "Yes, it does! A demon?"
"Rose, it doesn't matter; it won't affect us!" pleads Alek, glancing between me and Eric.
I shake my head. "No, Alek. Leave me here."
"And get stuck in the Void?"
"I don't care!"
"You will!"
He attempts to take my arm and I shove him. "Finn made me, then took away the power he gave me, and that sent me here; is that right?" Alek nods. "So to go back to the world, a Dark needs to give me the power the same way Finn did last time, is that also right?"
"Yes," he says, voice barely audible.
"Then no! I won’t allow myself to become a demon."
Eric chuckles. "Oh, dear, this is awkward."
"You won’t be! You’ll still be Between!" protests Alek. “Please, Rose.”
"Created by Dark - Finn told me the difference! They’ll own me, like they own you. No!"
"Tell her what'll happen," says Alek, gesturing at me. "Tell her she'll go to Hell if I don’t bring her back!"
"No, she’ll stay in the Void," says Eric.
"No. Hell. Julian said if I didn’t come here, she’ll go to Hell." Alek's eyes open in realisation. "Fuck! You bastards! You weren’t going to?"
"No, she’s more useful to us here."
Alek launches himself at Eric, who sidesteps him with more skill than I'd expect. "Now, now, Alek. This was always inevitable. You just needed a little encouragement."
“No!” Alek seizes the smaller man around the throat with both hands and slams him against the wall.
Eric’s face transforms into something more sinister; eyes blackening until they appear to sink into deep holes in his face, a face morphing into anger. “Bad idea,” he chokes.
A split-second later, Alek is flung across the corridor by an invisible force, head smacking on the wall between the doors opposite. Eric stands, hand outstretched in Alek’s direction, as if holding him there. I back up, heart thumping in my ears, waiting for the same treatment.
"She can choose whether to go with you, Alek, or stay here in the Void. We can't send either of you to Hell right now, you idiot, not unless your souls are completely broken." He steps closer and Alek winces, putting his hand to his head. "We can break your soul if you don't do what you're told; we own part of you. We don't own her. Yet."
The horror of what I’m witnessing cements my decision. How could he think I want involvement with these people? "Don't you see, Alek? If they give me the power to go back, they'll own me, like they own you!"
Alek falls to the floor as the man lets him go. "See, one of you gets it."
"The Void. I want to go there," I stand. "Tell me which door!"
I brace myself for Eric’s reaction to my movement, but he remains focused on Alek. Alek struggles to sit and pushes hair from his eyes. Fighting the trembling weakness in my limbs, I turn away and pull at the nearest door. I'm greeted with the usual empty room. I charge along the corridor, pulling open door after door as the man laughs.
"Rose! Don't!" Alek's desperate voice follows, but he doesn’t. Maybe he can't, I don't know.
Stumbling along, I count doors again, as if that will make any difference. My lucky number. Twenty-two. I halt at the twenty-second door.
Stumbling footsteps behind urge my decision. I glance around and see Alek heading toward me. Yanking the handle on the left hand door, I step through.
The door clicks closed behind and I plunge into darkness and rain. The earthy smell of the world is mingled with another, one that careers my thoughts back in time. Burnt rubber and oil. Headlights beam into my eyes as a car approaches, but the driver doesn't slow down, as if he can't see me. I stumble to one side, onto the verge, and sink into the long grass. Nearby, wooden crosses and flowers are arranged beneath a tree, tattered and dying. A memorial to Jamie.
I catch sight of something else, a figure nearby lying still. As I edge closer, I already know who it is. A girl with long, blonde hair stained by blood is sprawled on the edge of the road, blood spreading into a dark puddle of water. Me.
Unable to hold on any longer, I vomit, the action and sour taste proving this isn’t a coma. I'm here and alive. Or am I alive? The drizzling rain coats my hair and clothes, and I hug my arms around my knees struggling to catch up with this new nightmare. A tall figure crosses the road, his blonde hair illuminated as he steps beneath the streetlight.
Finn.
He approaches and sits next to me. "Hey, Rose."
"What's going on?" I ask him, incredulous at his behaving like we're here for a casual chat.
"This is the last place you were alive, which is why you're back here."
"How am I here and...” I point to the figure, swallowing down bile. "Over there?"
"You're on the border of life and death again; nobody else will be able to see you."
"Is this the real world?" I ask hoar
sely "Or the Void?
"I can't get into the Void, Rose."
"Am I still dead?"
Finn stares ahead. "Not quite."
I groan and drag my fingers through my hair, pulling so the pain reminds me I'm not dreaming. "You sent me to that place… the edge of the Void, didn't you?"
"Accidentally, I panicked when the Dark at the party was trying to use you to create something wrong for the world. I'm sorry, I never meant to end your life." He pauses. "Even though that was my reason for being in your world."
"You did end me then you sent me to that nightmarish place, so why are you still here?" I ask tersely.
Finn shifts to look at me, the rain glistening in his hair under the nearby streetlamp. The distance in his eyes is like I see in Alek's sometimes, as if there's something about me neither of them trusts. Or they don't trust themselves around me.
"You succeeded, though? You took back your energy, and I'm heading to the Void, as was always meant to happen."
He tips his head. "But you're not. You're back. If you had the choice, where would you go?"
"Back in time to here, where life was supposed to end for me." There's no evidence of the accident anymore, but as I stare at the road, I can picture everything: images of Jamie’s broken body that haunt me and twisted car wreckage strewn across the bitumen.
"Time travel is a little out of my capability," says Finn with a small laugh. "Do you mean you wish you'd died?"
I shiver. "The Dark would've taken me, wouldn't they?" He nods. "What did I do that was so wrong? Why was I going to Hell?"
"Nobody judges where you go, Rose. There was nothing wrong with you. You didn’t do anything wrong. Remember, I told you - the Dark just take advantage of situations."
"You saved me from the Dark and made me Between, so I'll always be stuck now. I'm not sure that's any better."
Finn rubs his legs and is quiet for a moment. "I wasn’t aware that would be the result of my actions the night you had the accident, but I couldn't let them take you. I saw you fighting the Dark and the good inside you was trying to overcome the oblivion he was pushing you toward." A car passes in the road, sloshing through the growing puddles. I think Finn has stopped talking, but he continues. "You broke my heart, Rose, a heart I didn't think I had. At that moment, in the midst of the accident, nothing mattered more than helping you live. Until that night, taking people's souls, watching them die, was my life; every time I took one, I felt nothing. Each time someone realised what was happening and the fear overcame them - nothing. I soothed them, making their passage easier, but that's no different to a nurse administering a drug. Then you..."
Inside, in the very centre of me, I knew this; Finn's quiet explanation tears at my heart, too. "Why?"
"I don't know. But that's why I have to do it again. I can't send you to a life in the Void or allow a demon to resurrect you into a Between they own. That's why I'm asking what you want this time." Finn folds a hand around mine and I prepare to pull away from the cold. The fingers enclosing mine are warm and soft; the soothing comfort I remember from the night I almost died runs through instead of the ice. Finn. It was always Finn in my nightmares, easing my fear with his gentle power. The words I’ve struggled to remember for so many months sound in my mind: ‘You’re safe. Don’t be afraid, I’ll fix this’.
He was wrong.
“Are you an angel, Finn?” I ask him warily. “The Dark guy at the party said you were.”
Finn looks at me sharply. “In your understanding of things, I am. But everything is a little more complicated than the labels people want to give us.”
“So, you’re not my guardian angel or something?”
Finn makes a soft noise of amusement. “How can I be? I’m a Reaper.”
“Labels, huh?” I say and smile at him.
He doesn’t return the smile.
"There’s no fog," I whisper to myself. "When I'm with you, there's fog and I get dizzy. Why can't I feel the cold?"
"Because you don't have any of my energy inside, not at the moment. If you want, I can send you back to the Void and you can make the decision whether to have a demon resurrect you as a Between." He pauses and releases my hand. "Or I can give you my energy again, and you can return as a Between who's free. I wouldn't ask anything of you."
Tears well in my eyes as I consider the choices; because I realise this isn't only my life I'm making a decision about, I reach out to touch Finn's face. "You. What would happen to you?"
He gently takes my hand and removes it from his cheek. "I have to make a choice," he says quietly, "I'd stay, too. I can't go back if I transgress again."
"What would happen to you if you stayed?"
He shrugs and stares ahead, in a closed-off, Finn way. "I’m not sure."
"Why risk that? Why do this? No, I can't, Finn. I'll go back to where I was. Back to Alek."
"No! I want to do this; don't make the decision based on what you think should happen to me. This is my fault and this is how I want to fix the situation I created." He wipes a hand across his face then turns back to me, his expression difficult to make out in the dim light. "Rose, how I feel about you breaks my heart every day. I see how unhappy and frightened you are and want to take that away, make you whole again, not hurt you further. Seeing you struggle and not being able to touch and comfort you is punishment enough for what I did."
I stand, battling against breaking down and showing him the pain he's talking about. I don't want to hear what I've suspected for so long. I presumed because I contained his energy that was what connected us. But this came before, from the night I lay in this road. Something caused him to save me, and his need to help me is stronger than his need to right his mistake and end me. Now he's prepared to take a step into a void of his own to do this.
"Why me, Finn? Why is this all happening to me?"
"Coincidence, fate, whatever you believe in. I don't know." He looks up at me, skin shining in the rain. "I won't come between you and Crazy Boy, don't worry."
Alek. "Do you know what he's doing? Who he's bringing back?"
Finn stands, too, and shifts his jacket closer against the rain. "Yes, I do. Do you love him?"
"What?" I blink at his out of the blue question.
"Alek. Do you think you love him?"
I pick at the edge of my cardigan. What do I feel for Alek? Not love, but the beginnings of something. Is it a need for him mixed with fear I'll lose him, the way he fears he'll lose me? There's a reason Alek came for me and is risking his life in the Void; that reason must go beyond the fear of losing me.
"I don't know."
"Would you care if he was lost to the Dark?"
"Of course!" I shoot back. "He's important to me. I care a lot about him."
Finn inhales and nods. "Okay. I guess I'm stuck then. I can't do anything I'm told."
I laugh because he sounds like a naughty child, and he frowns at me. "You laugh at really inappropriate things," he says.
"You say some funny things."
He shakes his head. "Will you allow me to give you the energy you need to be a Between so you can stay here, but not risk your life for demons? Because if I don’t, you’ll be alone in the Void."
"Great set of choices," I mutter.
"I won't interfere with your life and, of course, I won't touch you. But if I stay in the world, I’ll need to be around you. Is that okay?"
"Of course, you’ll be lost." I swallow down the lump choking my words.
Finn touches my face. "I won't be lost. I can cope with the everyday; I just need you to be safe. Things are about to change in the world."
"What? What's changing? Because of what Alek's doing?"
Instead of his usual gazing in the opposite direction he does when I ask a question he doesn't want to answer, Finn studies me. The intensity of his gaze heats my face as if he is touching my skin. He leans forward and kisses my brow, at a spot between my eyes that soothes. This physical closeness to Finn, for him to finally touch me wit
hout the ice and the fog, hurts. The pain of the cold is replaced by a confusing ache. I rewind to the last time I was here, when Finn took away my fear and hurt. I want the man who saved my life by giving me a half-life to take away that fear again, and I want to hold him because I understand how he's suffering for his choices. I wrap my arms around Finn's hard chest, but he stiffens and peels my hands away.
"Don't, Rose. Please." His eyes reflect the depth of his hurt and I know the one way I can help him.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Help me survive.”
For a moment, I think Finn is going to take hold of me again, but instead he buries his hands in his jacket pockets and nods. Returning to his familiar, expressionless demeanour, Finn doesn't look at me as he steps away and approaches my crumpled body on the roadside.
Finn strokes the hair of the girl on the ground, and the choking tears flow as I understand what this means to him. He's lost because he did this for me and now he's sealing his fate by repeating the action. Finn will lose who he is exactly as I did. What tears at and twists around my heart is Finn reached out to me and opened up about how he feels but knows he can never touch me again. If he does, he'll lose me forever.
Chapter Twenty-nine
ROSE
When I was ten, I lived and breathed Alice in Wonderland. I wandered around the countryside hoping to find a white rabbit to chase, picturing the ‘eat me’ cake, and wondering what the ‘drink me’ would taste like. I never found any, so I made my own. I insisted on dressing like the girl in the pictures and I wore my blonde hair the same too. Now, as I regain consciousness and focus on the blurry ceiling above, my chest tightens, surging with the relief. I did fall down the rabbit hole and my own Wonderland creatures of Reapers and demons came from a head injury pushing me into a childhood fantasy.
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