2. Sandro
Sandro
Then
W hat was the point anymore?
What was the point of living when everything that came near me died or perished?
I closed my fist tightly around the leather lead and bit hard on my bottom lip, trying to swallow the tears, but it didn’t work.
Of course it didn’t.
I’d lost the most important thing in my life. And when your body was killing you a little more every day, you didn’t get to have many important things.
Because attachment meant disappointment.
Especially for the other person.
I was twenty-five years old, and I was dying of an unknown disease, an unknown killer that no medicine or witchcraft could stop.
Why would I let anyone close if it meant they had to witness my death?
But I had let him in. And it was supposed to be Pluto and me until the very bitter end.
“Honey?” Mom rubbed her hand on my back, and I looked up, the sharp movement only making the tears fall more easily. “Oh, baby.”
She hugged me as Ma opened the front door, and I rubbed the leather collar harder.
He wasn’t really gone. Right? All I needed to do was give the collar a little shake, and he’d come bounding up to me with a very eager tongue and an even happier tail. He’d burst through the door and circle around me until I put his lead on and took us both to the park for our walk.
Ma opened the front door of my family home and Mom helped me inside.
No Pluto. No scampering. No wet kisses.
He may not have lived here for a while, like me, but that didn’t mean the house didn’t feel emptier than it had ever been.
I broke down again, and my moms dragged me to the living room and planted me on the sofa like a ragdoll.
I may as well be that.
Since Pluto died—no, correction. Since Pluto had been murdered, my heart beat a little slower, and I was sure it had nothing to do with my illness and everything to do with my best friend no longer being here.
“Awww, Sandro, baby, he’ll forever be in your heart, and he’ll be waiting for you over the rain—” Ma started.
“Don’t, Ma. Please don’t go on about rainbow bridges and forever friends and furry angels and some bullshit. I can’t handle it.” Somehow, I found the strength to tell her, but only because I was sick. I was sick of the comfort words. I was sick of the sad puppy-dog eyes everyone gave me when I told them Pluto was dead. I was fed up with it all.
Because what if there was no rainbow bridge? What if there was no other side? What if there was no life after? What if there was only…darkness? What then?
“I’m sorry,” Ma apologized, and Mom rubbed her arm.
I wanted to apologize too, but I didn’t have the strength. I just had emptiness. A whole lot of empty.
“If I get my hands on that wanker!” Mom cursed. “If only I could get my hands on him.”
Him.
The abomination.
The man I should have never let close.
Austin.
Silly me thought I’d found my mate. But just because he was a wolf and I was a witch didn’t mean we were fated to be together.
That was the problem with my world. No one taught you what finding your mate felt like. What it looked like. What it should be like.
It couldn’t be taught. It was magic. Magic was chaotic at best. There was no rhyme or reason. If there was, I could bring my best friend back. I could turn back time and change things. I could make it so Austin never snapped. That he never attacked Pluto. That he never stole my best friend from me because of the demons in his own head.
But that was exactly what had happened.
I should have kicked Austin out sooner. I shouldn’t have clung to him. I was all for second chances and that bullshit, but maybe certain creatures shouldn’t get second chances.
Maybe I should have trusted Pluto when he didn’t bond with Austin.
But no, my silly loved-up brain thought they didn’t get along because one was a wolf and the other just a simple dog. That they were just in a contest, and I was their pissing spot.
“He’s dead, Mom. My friends killed him. He paid for his crimes.”
“Friends? What friends?”
Oh yeah. I forgot. I wasn’t supposed to have friends.
To be honest, I didn’t even know if Tomasz and Loki were my friends anyway. I’d only met them a couple days ago, and even they’d tried to kill me. But it turned out they were only after Austin. He’d done some terrible things to them too, and his scent had led them to me.
They were the ones who had ended him. Maybe that was why it didn’t feel any better. Maybe if I’d killed him with my own two hands I’d feel something…something more.
I looked down at the rivet-studded black collar, and everything welled behind my eyes until my vision was blurry and my cheeks wet.
“I miss him.” I didn’t mean to sound like the pathetic loser I was, but it still came out as a whimper.
A whimper that had both my moms dropping to their sides to give me a hug.
And when I was in their arms, it was easier to cry. So cry I did.
My breath got short, my heart beat faster, and my tears kept running until the moment was interrupted by a piercing ring.
I pulled away from the hug and retrieved my phone from my pocket.
Private Number.
Fuck! He was the last person I wanted to speak to. But if I didn’t pick up, I’d have to pay more, which I couldn’t do.
“Hello, Mr. Erman,” I said, answering the call.
To my surprise, my voice didn’t come out like a whimper, which was a win, I guessed.
“Mr. Petrelli. Your installment is late,” said the familiar sharp and deep voice of my lender.
Although lender was a generous word. Loan shark was far more accurate. And he didn’t fail to show it every chance he got.
“I-I’m aware, Mr. Erman. I’m sorry. It’s been an eventful few days—weeks even.”
I squinted, already knowing his response.
“Do I sound like your therapist? I don’t care. I need your payment, or you know what happens.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me.
“Yeah, I know. The payment doubles.” And he might send someone to give me a black eye for good measure. It hadn’t happened often, but enough times to know he meant business.
“Don’t get smart with me, Mr. Petrelli. I’m not your father. Oh, wait, I forgot. You don’t have one.”
I bit my tongue and squeezed Pluto’s collar tighter.
“I’ll sort the payment out later today, Mr. Erman. I promise.” I wasn’t going to dignify his remark with a response. Mainly because I’d regret it, but also because I was trying to take the high ground, which was hard to do when you weren’t the one on top with all the power.
“I’ll be waiting,” he said, and the line went dead.
I lowered the phone and took a deep breath. Talking to Erman always took it out of me. As if it wasn’t enough that I didn’t have Pluto for moral support anymore, I had to deal with Mr. Erman and his threats.
It was all too much. This whole world was too much, especially without Pluto in it.
I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t…
I didn’t get to finish my train of thought. It would have been a miserable one anyway. Instead, my vision darkened and my voice dropped an octave.
“Die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. My time is up,” I said, unable to control what came out of my mouth.
How pathetic to be born sick and with a witch power that only predicted death. Especially when that death was mine. So much for being a cool witch with cool powers.
The chill wrapped around my body dissipated, and I could see clearly again. I could see my mothers staring at me with tears in their eyes, their arms wrapped around me protectively, like they’d done my whole life.
I wanted to apologize, to tell them how sorry I was for putting them through…everything, but before I could, everything went hazy.
Here we go again.
There was no easy way to explain it. No easy way to describe what happened to me when my illness overtook me. The only way to describe it, the only way it made any sense, was to say it was like someone put up a big invisible wall between me and the rest of the world, and I became nothing but a ghost.
Kinda like time slowing down, but it didn’t really.
My body went limp against my moms, and I heard their concern as if from a distance.
Blurred figures moved in front of me as they laid me down on the sofa.
“Oh, gods and goddesses,” Mom said.
“It’s getting worse,” Ma said. “I’ll get the spell.”
Mom knelt on the floor by my side and placed her hand on my forehead.
“Get the towels too. He’s burning up,” she said.
I felt the collar slip from my fingers, but only in the way you feel when someone pretends to touch you but doesn’t. Like a phantom thing that was both there and not.
I heard the jingle when it hit the floor. Felt it echo inside my head like a church bell. Felt the pain of losing Pluto reverberate through me.
I felt a whole lotta things, and none of them were nice.
I was slipping.
More and more each day. Feeling hollower with every passing second.
Sometimes, I didn’t know why I even hung on to this world that clearly didn’t want me in it. If it did, it wouldn’t try to kill me.
I had nothing to live for. No one to live for. Even my moms…they’d survive my loss. They’d been preparing for it since I was born. They’d spent a lifetime grieving for their son while he was alive.
I’d put them through enough pain.
Maybe I should just grab a knife myself and end it all.
It was a sweet thought.
A thought that licked across my skin and burned with its intensity. A heat throbbed behind my ears, making the hearing aids even more uncomfortable than usual.
The hotter I got, the more I wanted this release, and the more I wanted this release, the deeper I fell into this darkness that wasn’t even dark at all.
The hotter I got, the harder my heart pounded. It beat slower, sure, but every beat boomed inside me like a firework, or a gun.
The darkness turned to fog, a mist covering my eyes and parting only long enough to show me images that never made any sense.
A hand buried in white fur.
A wall made of black stone that glimmered blue just before it disappeared.
A sword held up in the air, charging into battle.
A naked, chiseled male body I didn’t recognize under me.
So many images I could never interpret or explain. Whether they came to me in this state or while going about my normal life.
If you could call my life normal.
The images? They felt like déjà vu, but at the same time, the person in those images, in those flashes, was never me, so how could it be déjà vu?
They were like…dreams, the lucid ones, that you feel deep in your bones even if they only lasted a second.
“He’s out,” Mom said, and the darkness overtook my vision again as I felt Ma approach.
A coolness wet my forehead very briefly before it didn’t register anymore.
“Shit. Should we be worried this has been happening more and more? First the fevers, now the blackouts?” Ma asked.
“I don’t know, honey. I don’t fucking know anything anymore. We don’t even know what this sickness is. But whatever it is, it’s getting worse. He’s running out of time.”
“Do you think what happened to the dog made it worse?”
“It certainly didn’t help,” Mom answered.
It hadn’t, Mom. It hadn’t .
I was dying. Faster and faster every day. I didn’t even need my power, my death sense, to know it.
It was as if the entire universe was laughing at my expense.
Why else would it grant me the power of death, the ability to sense people’s deaths, if not so I could sense mine? So I could feel my end approaching and make me give up even sooner?
I hated my power like I hated my life. Like I hated everything.
“ Cura ,” Mom whispered beside me.
I felt a trickle of magic spread over my body, easing the heat ever so slightly but not enough to make a difference.
No matter how many spells, how many healers, how many doctors, I would never be okay. I couldn’t beat this invisible illness.
“He’s so young. Too young. The Fates can’t take him from us now. Not yet,” Ma said, and I felt her presence over my head like a different kind of heat. Not one that scorched but one that comforted.
“Be strong, honey. Be strong. We have to. For him,” Mom said, and it was only then I realized Ma was crying.
“I can’t lose him yet, Ivy. I just can’t!” Ma wailed.
I tried to open my eyes. To see what was happening. To open my mouth and tell Ma it was for the best, but I couldn’t.
It was torture.
“Maybe this is for the best, honey. Maybe he won’t be in pain anymore. This isn’t living, is it?”
Ma sniffled.
“Maybe. But it hurts, Ivy. It hurts. It hurts…so much.”
“I know, honey. I know it hurts. I feel it too. But I’m trying to think of what’s best for him. Even if it would break me.”
Ma didn’t reply, but her crying was undeniable, even from the depths of this abyss that had swallowed me whole.
I hated doing this to them. I hated making them feel like that. Hurt and broken. They’d loved me ever since I joined their family, and all I’d given them back in return was agony and grief.
I couldn’t keep doing this to them.
I wanted to open my eyes. I wanted to tell them it wasn’t the end. It should be, but it couldn’t be. I was willing to fight even if that fight wasn’t strong enough in my body. But this couldn’t be my ending. This couldn’t be my life. Had I been born just to die? Was that my destiny? That didn’t seem fair.
“Oh,” one of them said, and I heard the jingle of Pluto’s collar as it was scraped off the floor and placed in my hands. “Maybe Pluto can still watch over him.”
They both put their hands on mine and squeezed as if trying to heal me with their collective magic despite neither being a healer. It didn’t matter. They did it because they loved me and couldn’t lose me yet.
And dammit…
I didn’t want to lose me yet either.
I refused to let that be my story.
I refused to let my destiny be to die young and alone.
I refused to be a blip in the history of the world, a man no one remembered and no one cared about.
I had to live. For my moms, and for Pluto, and for the sake of it.
For fuck’s sake. I want to live!