Chapter 29
Cole
Everything was pain and darkness—it was Sephtis saying those three words to me that I would have set him on fire for saying before.
It was Sephtis saying those three words to me and it sounding like he was telling me goodbye.
It was me wondering if I could hate him even more, because he wasn’t allowed to say shit like that to me when I was never going to get a chance to say it back.
It was black, and pain, and loss…
And then it was red.
Red…
A field of red.
And standing in the center of it was a face I thought I’d never see again.
“No.” The word tore from my throat in disbelief. Had he killed me, then?
Had Sephtis told me he loved me and then killed me… because that was the only thing I could think of that would make this possible. The only reason I could think of that my brother would be walking toward me with a smile on his face and red petals caught in his hair.
“C-Caiden?” He was a blur… not because he wasn’t real, but because my eyes were filling with tears. “What’s… what is this? Is this…” I got so caught up in watching him walk toward me that I couldn’t finish my sentence until he was there. Just a few inches away.
I could reach out and touch him if I wanted, but I was suddenly so afraid he’d disappear if I did that I clenched my fingers at my side instead.
“You aren’t dreaming. And you aren’t dead. At least, not yet.”
“Fuck. I…” I didn’t know what to say—how was I seeing him if I wasn’t dead, if it wasn’t a dream? “What did Sephtis do?”
Caiden shrugged. “I don’t even think it was him. Weird things happen sometimes when Death goes where he shouldn’t.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered Sephtis saying something like that. Death causing chaos wherever he went.
But everything he’d said… everything we’d been working for… it didn’t matter.
Caiden was here.
“It matters, Cole. You can’t stay here. You have to go save your soulmate, right?”
“I—” My eyes widened, and I shook my head.
“I don’t. I…” A vision of Sephtis’s golden eyes going soft as he said those three fucking words burned behind my vision.
“I hate him.” And I wondered if I actually meant it this time because he’d told me he loved me and he hadn’t even given me a chance to say it back.
“Come on, Cole. You were never really built to hate anyone.” Caiden’s smile was soft, beautiful. It was the sun I couldn’t see in the sky, and a warmth I’d missed so much I felt like I was breaking. “Do you remember when we were kids, and Felix Reed used to pick on me?”
“Yeah.” My voice cracked with emotion, and I furiously blinked away the heat of tears because I didn’t want to miss a second of seeing him like this. Smiling. Alive… Happy.
“You remember how you beat his ass after school, and then two years later, I found the two of you kissing under the bleachers?”
The startled laugh that spilled from my chest ached all the way down, and I finally let myself reach out and take his hand. It felt solid.
Real.
Warm.
“Yeah… fuck, Caiden.” He caught me when I half threw myself at him, wrapping me up in his arms. They were strong—he felt strong.
I’d spent so many years feeling him grow weaker and weaker, watching the pain ravage his body and steal my brother away one IV drip, one hospital trip at a time. “I missed you.”
He pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head, but kept talking. “You couldn’t hate him, and you don’t hate Sephtis.” Caiden’s hand came up, brushing over my chest, over the red line that still trailed outward to wherever he’d been taken.
“He was there for you when I couldn’t be. He took you away from me. He… he…” I was grasping now, breaking all over again because all I could hear in the back of my mind was Sephtis saying those three words over and over again, and then vanishing.
“He tried to let me stay. Besides, the only reason I was still there was because I was waiting for him… It took him long enough, honestly.”
That made me pull back, and Caiden’s blue eyes were full of mischief.
“What do you mean?” Sephtis had told me, but hearing it now… from Caiden…
“You might not be able to hate anyone, Cole, but you’re a stubborn ass.
I knew you’d need someone after I was gone.
And as soon as I saw him, I remembered every story you’d ever told me when we were little about the kind of man you wanted to marry.
Do you know…” He dropped his hand, skimming his fingers through the field of red flowers surrounding us.
“These only showed up when he did? I was in an empty field before that.”
Sephtis… the tears burning in my eyes were still there, still falling freely when I looked at my brother. “I do hate him. God, so fucking much.”
Hate.
Love.
It was strange how much those words seemed to mean the same thing right now.
It was strange how much I was beginning to realize I’d probably never really hated him at all.
“Caiden…” My arms around him tightened, and I wondered if I could hold him close enough that I could bring him back with me.
I couldn’t do this, couldn’t have him here and have to go back to a world where he didn’t exist. “I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know how to do this without you. I’ve been so… lost.”
He hugged me before gently pushing me back, and his fingers were like a whisper when they wiped away my tears.
“I know it’s been hard, and I’m so sorry.
I would have stayed if I could have, Cole…
but it was… it was past my time to go. I just needed to make sure everything was right for you before I left.
” He cupped my cheek. “You’re all the best parts of me I got to leave behind. ”
“I’m nothing without you there.” All the things I’d never had a chance to say… all my fear and doubt and pain. It was bubbling to the surface now that he was here. “All I’ve done is fuck up since you’ve been gone.”
“Cole… You haven’t fucked anything up. This is the path you were always supposed to walk. Maybe you made it a little rougher than you needed to, but I wouldn’t expect any less from you.”
How could he sound so happy? He was dead. Gone. And I still didn’t understand how he was here now unless I was dead too. And the guilt that I felt when I realized I didn’t want to be dead, that I needed to get back… to get to Sephtis…
It was too much.
“I don’t know how to do this alone.”
Caiden leaned over long enough to pluck one of the red flowers from the field around us, and he held it up between us.
Where he touched it, I could see the petals glowing.
Soft. Illuminated with an inner light that was almost ethereal.
“You’ve never been alone, Cole. I’ve always been right here with you.
You just have to stop missing me enough to realize it.
Especially when he’s always been with you too. ”
He… Sephtis.
I’d wasted so much time hating him, and now…
“It’s okay, baby brother.” Caiden wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into another hug. Above us, the sun in the sky was a beautiful gold.
The color of Sephtis’s eyes.
“Nothing’s okay, Caiden. It hasn’t been since you died… and now… shit, I thought maybe it could be, even though everything has been so fucked up. It’s like I’m being punished for wanting to be happy without you.”
The soft slap on my arm took me by surprise, and my gaze darted up.
“So self-centered. You really think the entire world revolves around your grief? Come on, Cole…” The chiding in his tone didn’t sting because I could feel the warmth behind it.
I could hear the soft tremble of tears in his voice.
“Sometimes things happen. I had to go, and you had to stay. Now you have to do the scariest shit you’ve ever done.
You need to let me go so you can go get him. ”
Let him go? I didn’t know if I could do that.
“I… Caiden. I don’t know how.” How did you let go of the person who felt like they were all the parts of you you’d loved the most? And how was I supposed to save anyone from Death?
I was pretty sure he could read my mind in this place, because he brought a hand up and wiped one of the tears that had slipped from beneath my lashes. “You really need to believe in yourself as much as I’ve always believed in you. As much as I still believe in you now.”
He wasn’t doing a good job of quelling my tears, but my lips did finally quirk into the softest of smiles. “I don’t know why you did. You were always getting me out of trouble.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “And here I am, doing it again. Shouldn’t that be enough proof that Death isn’t as cool as he thinks he is?”
“What?”
“If you want to defeat Death, you can’t play by his rules.
Your soulmate is yours. You were brought together by something so far beyond Death—something he’s jealous of, honestly, and something he doesn’t understand.
He can’t control it, even though he wants to.
You just have to be brave enough to tempt Fate.
Disrupt the balance.” Caiden pressed a kiss to my temple and closed my fingers around something soft and warm.
“This should be all the proof you need.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I could feel him slipping away.
Or maybe I was waking up. Either way, panic surged through my chest and I clung to him tighter.
“Wait. Caiden, wait. Please. Please, stay with me. Let me stay.” Just saying it made him feel more solid, like I could hold on to him and stay here if I really wanted. But where would that leave everything else? Where would that leave Sephtis?
“You have to let me go, Cole. Death will always have a hold on you if you have one foot in his door while you’re calling my name.”
I didn’t know how to let him go—I didn’t want to…
But somewhere in the back of my mind, I could still hear Sephtis’s voice, and I could feel the way Caiden was gently pushing me away. Pushing me toward thoughts of golden eyes glowing like the sun.
“You’re all the best parts of me, Caiden.” My voice broke on his name, because this was it. The goodbye I never got to give, and the last time I could say his name and blame myself for not being there. “I love you.”
“I love you too, little brother. Now go live for us both.”
The feel of his hand over my heart was a warmth that chased me as I opened my eyes.
My fist was pressed to the place his had been, and when I opened my clenched fingers, there was a single red petal that glowed with an ethereal light.
Proof…
A soft, shining piece of Caiden’s soul held in the palm of my hand.
And now it was up to me to do my part—it was up to me to upset the balance.