Alex avoids eye contact with me as he nods once. “Yes, Father.” He seems younger at the moment and breakable. “It was my fault and I messed up, but I didn’t understand the situation.”
What he says aches, but so does my wound. I press my palm down onto my bleeding wrist and search the wreckage of the living room for some kind of weapon, something I can protect myself with. “What situation?” I ask, trying to stall.
“The one where you stop asking so many questions,” Stephan growls and kicks a piece of table across the room. “I try and try to do everything right, but you two have made it almost impossible.”
Alex rises from the couch. There’s a bruise on his cheek and his nose is bleeding and crooked. “I said I’m sorry. I just got confused and forgot what the purpose was.”
“Well, we’re going to fix that now,” Stephan says. “Before she gets any worse. I don’t even want to know how far you pushed her toward humanity.”
Alex glances at me and I know what he’s thinking. I wonder if he can picture it as clearly as I can; how he thrust into me, pressed himself against me, kissed me and felt me because my images are quickly fading as numbness infects me.
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask, tearing my gaze from Alex and fixing it on Stephan. “Drain me dry, kill me, lock me away in a box?”
“Gemma,” Alex says robotically with pity and it makes me want to throttle him. “I already explained to you what’s going to happen.”
I don’t look at him. “You explained a lot of things to me, which make no sense now; especially, since it’s been made clear what he did to my mother and that he’s working with them.” I aim an unsteady finger at the Death Walkers lurking near the walls. “And besides, the last time I checked, you woke me up telling me you were going to save me.”
Stephan swipes the sword around and flips the blade into the air. It comes down and he twists his arm to catch it effortlessly. “I’m impressed. I really didn’t think anyone would figure out what I did to your mother.” He gives a dramatic pause. “How on earth did you do it?”
I expect Alex to tell him about my Foreseer ability, about the visions, about my newfound mark, but he stays silent.
“Your mother needed to go,” Stephan says, pacing the length of the room. “And she went like a coward, begging me to take you instead of her. She didn’t seem to understand that the world’s fate depends on you and your inability to feel.”
I stab my nails into my palms and let the skin split open. “If the world’s fate depends on that, then why are you working with the Death Walkers?” I ask. “Because I can’t see them being in a on a plan that has anything to do with saving the world. They’re nothing but evil and they tried to kill me.”
He shakes his head. “Kill you? They were trying to protect you.”
I sink down on the couch. My skin, my jeans and my hand are soaked in blood and snow. “You can’t be buying this?” I ask Alex.
Alex shakes his head and I think I see remorse hidden deep inside his pupils. “I’m sorry, Gemma.”
Stephan stretches his hand in the air and snaps his fingers. “Bring me the memoria extracto.”
The wind kicks up and spins the air with snowflakes. A Death Walker treads through the back doorway, carrying a small black box with a red eye on the lid. It walks up to Stephan and brings a chill into the room as it hands the box to him before going back outside.
Stephan bends down and sets the sword on the ground. The light casts shadows in his eyes as he stares at the box. He cups the top with his hand and pries the lid off with a requiring tug, then dispenses it onto the floor. He reaches his fingers inside and draws out a round dark object that has a sandpaper texture.
I can’t help myself. “A rock?”
“It’s not just a rock. It’s the most magnificent thing I’ve ever discovered.” Stephan holds the rock between his fingers and squints at it. “I found it in the Wasteland, completely intact.” He tosses it in the air, turns over his hand and catches it. “It’s so much better than detaching your soul because it wipes out your entire mind. You won’t even be able to function anymore.”
Vomit burns at the back of my throat as memories of my empty past flow through me in a line of pointless events. “You can’t do that,” I whisper.
Alex sucks in a breath and his hands start to shake as he joins his father in the center of the room. “You didn’t tell me about this.”
“That’s because I can’t trust you,” Stephan says. “You prove that time and time again.”
“I said I’m sorry. I don’t… I don’t know…” he trails off. The idea of pleading with Alex seems pathetic, but I spot a small window when his gaze collides with mine. “I get confused when I’m around her.”
Summoning inner strength, I stagger to my feet and shuffle to him while gripping my wrist in my hand. “Alex, don’t let him do this to me. Please. This is so much worse than detaching my soul.”
His eyes hold as much agony as I carry inside me. “I’m sorry, Gemma. About everything. I should have never taken it that far.”
When the angry heat sweeps through my body, I let it out the only way I can think off. By kicking him in the shin and slapping his face, arms, and chest repeatedly, but he just stands there and takes it.
But Stephan rushes forward, seizes my arm and throws me down on the ground and I land in a pile of wood that used to be the coffee table. The prickle spears at the back of my neck, liberating a feeling of irreversible hate. I never loved Alex—I understand that now—but I cared for him deeply. I trusted him against my innermost warnings; let him do things to me that no one ever had. It’s my own fault for trusting him, though, and I make a vow right there that if I make it out of this, I’ll never trust him again. I’ll never trust anyone again.
I pull my knees to my chest and shut my eyes as the Death Walkers close in on me and build a wall of ice around us, trapping us in brick of ice. Stephan squats down in front of me, he eyes me over and then darkness possesses his pupils as he holds the rock up above his head.
“Alex, I’m going to let you do the honors,” he says with a grin.
Alex’s jaw twitches as he refuses to look at me. “I’d rather not.”
“I don’t give a shit what you’d rather do,” he snaps. “I’m telling you, you’ll do it or go with her.”
Alex’s fist shakes as he unhurriedly makes his way over to his father and snatches the rock from his fingers. Stephan stands up while Alex lowers himself in front of me. He struggles to look at me and I make it harder on him, not blinking or moving as I stare into his eyes, forcing him to see me the entire time.
“Please.” I try one last time.
He doesn’t answer and his hand wobbles as he places the rock in front of my face, right between my eyes. Up close, there are swirls of black that entwine at the roundest side. Those lines begin to pirouette, spin and cycle like writing a song of death and soon I can hear the lyrics.
This is it. This is the end of my short-lived life. It seems like I’ve done everything, yet, I’ve done nothing. Every moment, every emotion has been acted out on a stage made of imaginary wood that only I could see. It has never existed, not really, and now it’s gone.
My head fills with static. I see my life. I see my death. I finally see my future.
Laughing. The sun shining as we run through the field, chasing each other.
Happy. He smiles. I smile and everything makes sense.
Smiling. We stand up in front of a thousand people, but the only one that matters is him. His green eyes are on me as he whispers that he loves me and I reply that I love him.
Love. I wish it were real.
The cabin begins to diminish into contorted objects as my skin glows beneath the locket. The electricity drifts from my body and one word comes to mind as I fall toward the floor.
Silence.
The last thing I see is Alex’s green eyes, then my legs and arms go inert and my heart dies with them. I gasp my last breath of air as my life leaves my body, leaving behind nothing more than a spirit. I see my mom’s bright blue irises, her warm smile; I see the life I’ll never have. The humming in my head grows louder until I can’t think anymore; can’t feel. My eyelids fall shut and only one feeling remains.
Hollow.
***
The black water crashes against the sandy shore and ash rains down from the clouds and floats across the land. Alex pulls me against him, so tightly we are almost one soul. I breathe in his scent of cologne, wanting to stay in his arms forever.
“Don’t worry, Gemma,” he whispers against my cheek. “I’ll always save you. No matter what, I’ll always save you.”
I nod. “I know.”
He moves back and flattens our palms together forming a temple. “Ego promitto ad protegendum tibi in perpetuum.”
I don’t understand the language, but I know that he means what he says from the bottom of his heart and I hold onto that.
“Now close your eyes and trust me,” he says softly but with strength.
As I submit and close my eyes, a bright orange flame erupts across the land and burns down on the trees. Then silence sets in with the smoke circling around us and suffocating us into the darkness. I want to run, but I cling onto him for dear life, knowing he’ll save me somehow.
Epilogue
My head is buzzing, like a Goddamn bug trapped in a light, over and over again. It just about drives me crazy. My skin is warm, my body relaxed and the air smells like lilacs and rain. The ground below my body is soft. I feel content.
Feel? But I’m supposed to be dead, or at least locked in a coffin in my own head.
I shoot upright, but as the blood rushes from my head, I fall back onto the mattress. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I’m lying in a bed in a room with pale purple walls and a small window that lets in the sunlight. The view outside is filled with colorful lights and flamboyant buildings that reach toward the skyline.