Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Ella
Slower - Tate McRae
T ears stream down my face as Luke drives across Stoneview. Gated mansions whizz past my eyes. Perfectly trimmed grass on the sidewalks, joggers in luxurious gym clothes, small dogs running with them. A chauffeur opens the door to a man dressed in a suit, already on the phone at 6:30 a.m. A maid walks toward a gate, stopping at the interphone to ring for her morning shift. And I know that beneath all this luxury, in the underground of disgusting riches, the Silent Circle rules everything.
The show feels strange once you’ve seen backstage. You can’t unsee the strings holding the puppets.
This town makes me sick.
“I told you to call it off,” I rasp through the tightness in my throat. Licking my dry lips, I rub the palm of my hand across my wet face. “I told you to call it off.”
He ignores me, not about to repeat for the hundredth time that it was too late. He can keep quiet. Nothing will make me feel better .
“He’s your best friend,” I hiss.
“Was.” That’s all that comes out of his mouth, and it’s enough to send me into another crying fit.
Was because Chris isn’t anything anymore. Except dead.
Flashes of last night come back in waves that make me want to die. He made me forget everything. The outside world, the way I hate myself. He made me feel whole like he does so well. He made me love him all over again.
God, I can’t erase the broken look on his face when he learned about his dad.
Luke won’t even tell me what happened, if his family knows about his dad or him. He won’t tell me where to find his body. I can’t stop thinking of Chris’s mom…and Juliette… It’s all too much.
I didn’t even get one last goodbye.
The walk from the car to the temple is the most excruciating thing I’ve ever had to go through.
I lost the love of my life, and in exchange, the Circle is offering me to become a Hera to a Shadow they know will initiate next year. They said I’d have a choice between three of them. It buys me a year since nothing will be asked of me until they become fully pledged Shadows.
Maybe I can run away. Not maybe. I will .
Luke is allowed in, and I don’t know what deal he’s been making with Duval, but I don’t like how close they’ve become. My brother isn’t the man I knew anymore, becoming a darker person with every new step he takes to survive.
“Ella,” Eugene Duval welcomes me into his office yet again. “Please, take a seat.”
I do, but my gaze stays on the three men standing next to the president of the Circle. Achilles is one of them, and he doesn’t look happy about it. I don’t bother answering his questioning gaze. If I have to pick one, I’ll pick him. He’s my best friend; he’ll never hurt me, and we won’t owe each other anything. He can fuck around with Aphrodites until he finds the love of his life while I let myself turn into nothing at home.
The perfect couple.
“You know what I expect of you, Ella. You’re aware of the kind gesture I’m extending. I won’t make this any longer than it has to be.” He shows the three men with his hand, like presenting a show. “Choose.”
I open my mouth to get this over with, when the door slams open. All heads whip in that direction, mouths gaping at the man standing in the doorway.
He’s covered in dirt. His white shirt brown and gray from soil, his hair completely disheveled. He looks unwell, pale, with cracked, dehydrated lips. Like he came back from the dead. Quite literally.
But he’s glorious, mighty… alive.
Heart soaring, I jump out of my chair. “Him,” I blurt out. “I choose him.”
And I don’t run to his arms, I practically teleport myself. He welcomes me in a loving embrace, his lips meeting mine in a dangerously possessive kiss that has me melting against him, breathless. I don’t care that he tastes like dirt, doesn’t smell like himself, and feels weak.
He’s mine.
But then he pulls me away, holding me at arm’s length. “You know I’ve wanted nothing but to hear those words, Sweets.”
Something twists my stomach at the look on his face. Something wrong .
“But not like this. ”
I blink up at him, confused as to what he means.
“If I’ve learned one thing through all of this, it’s that I want you to choose me not because I forced you to, but because you want to .”
“But…the Circle,” I panic. I won’t love him again. Ever. “I don’t want to be promised to anyone else.”
“You won’t,” he reassures me, his hands squeezing my shoulders softly. It’s already working. His protection takes over my whole being.
“That’s not up to you to decide,” Duval’s voice chimes in, sending an icy chill down my spine.
We both turn to him, and Chris stands straighter, squaring his shoulders. “You said if I got out, you’d grant me anything I want. Here it is: I want Ella out of the Circle.”
Duval is about to open his mouth, but Chris cuts him off.
“And I want to be allowed to wait for her. No one will be promised to me until she decides if she’ll be the one.”
“Leave us.” Those are the only words from Duval at first. He’s talking to the future Shadows.
They walk out of the room, only leaving me, Chris, Luke, and the president of the Circle.
“I would have to run this through the board,” he explains.
“Your word is everything in this society. So, make it work,” Chris throws back. “You tried to end me, and I’m back. You should know by now how far I’m willing to go to get what I want.”
Duval runs his tongue across his teeth, still thinking.
“I guess if that means we have you in the Circle, I’m willing to make an exception.”
“Sound choice,” Chris answers smoothly. “And Megan. Do what you have to do, but McLean can never know. ”
Hesitating a few seconds, Duval looks at all of us. “This is a big ask, Christopher.”
“If her dad knows what I did. It could destroy the Circle from the inside.” He pauses, clearly unsure if he wants to say his next words. “Think of it as something to hold over me.”
Duval nods. “Why don’t you go home and rest. We will call on you, don’t you worry. Once you don’t look so much like you’ve crawled out of a grave.”
My eyes widen, and I look at my brother. “A fucking grave?”
“Let’s go,” Chris tells me, brushing my hair behind my ear.
“Even being buried alive couldn’t fucking keep him away from you,” Luke mumbles annoyingly as we walk through the hallway.
“You know what’s funny?” Chris says, his voice broken by exhaustion.
He looks at Luke as we keep walking. “For someone who wanted me dead, you put something on my head that helped me not get soil in my mouth or nostrils. And you also gave me a belt I could use to dig. Oh, and chose to bury me in a spot with my head right next to the root of a tree, allowing for air pockets and for me to follow a trail to the surface.”
“You’re imagining things,” Luke answers knowingly.
There’s a silence before Chris adds. “I just find it interesting.”
Luke drives Chris home, and he’s about to leave when I tell him I need to talk to his best friend. I think the thought of losing Chris over all of this made him realize it was not for him to decide whether we should date. He doesn’t allow anything, but he doesn’t stop me either, telling me he’ll be waiting.
The second I’m alone with the man I love, I take him in my arms. His arms wrapping around me feel like they’re already putting me back together.
“You crawled out of a grave for me.”
“What is it you guys don’t understand about nothing will stop me .”
I laugh against him, tears in my eyes. “You’re insane.”
He steps back. “Ella, I meant what I said in Duval’s office. You’re free now, not an Aphrodite anymore. And…you’re not mine either. Not unless you decide to come back out of your own volition.”
When I take a step back too, I watch his face fall. The pain it causes is visceral, but I see it too. Carrying on like this, because he didn’t leave me a choice, wouldn’t work. We would never be equals, and there would always be that part of us that wonders…would I leave if I could?
He’s letting me leave now, even if I might never come back to him.
“I realized something, Sweets. Something I didn’t want to be true, but that I know is.”
He scratches his throat, massages the back of his neck, and locks his eyes on mine.
“I was part of your self-destruction,” he admits. “Everything you ever did was because you hated yourself. Because you were taught by your dad to hate yourself. The sleeping around, the no-studying, building a fake personality everyone at college would love, self-harm…and me.”
He shakes his head, like he can’t believe he’s admitting it.
“I am part of the things and people you allowed to destroy you because you thought you deserved to be destroyed. That you weren’t worth anything. And in my selfishness, I subconsciously supported that. I thought my obsession showed how much I loved you, but all I did was press on those insecurities and turn you dependent. I’m sorry, Ella. I am so sorry. And if you’re going to stop hurting yourself like you promised me, then you have to keep me out of your life. At least for the time being. At least until you’re sure of what you truly want.”
I swallow the tears that threaten to fall. Not because he’s hurting me, but because he’s right, and it’s always hard to be called out on self-destructive behavior. It’s heart-shattering to see how he was very much part of it.
“I love you,” I push past the tightness in my throat. “I don’t love what you did, and I don’t love the man you became to have me. But I love you .”
“I love you too.” He smiles sadly. I hate it on him. I prefer his shy, lopsided smile. Or his beautiful grin when he’s truly happy. “God, you can’t even begin to imagine how much I love you.”
I snort. “I think I’m starting to get the idea.”
The kiss on my lips is soft. It’s not possessive like he usually kisses me. It’s sweet, a perfect goodbye.
“Hold on. I just need to give you something before you leave.”
He runs up the stairs, coming back a minute later with a journal.
“Take this,” he says, swallowing roughly. “You can read all of it.”
I look down at the black notebook. Every single page has a date and a couple of lines written on it. “Did you write all of these?”
He nods .
“Read it. Take your time. Months, if you have to. Years…” He releases a heavy sigh. “I don’t want that, but I’ll wait. I’ll be taking care of giving you your spot back at SFU. Dance major. Do everything you love, be fulfilled. And then…”
He runs a hand across his face, tears shining in his eyes.
“Then, please come back to me.”
For once it’s not an order this time, it’s a plea.
My beautiful Christopher Murray, who spent months shattering my life to pieces so he would be the only thing in it, is letting me go, hoping it means I will come back one day.
And I can’t promise him I will, but I can promise myself that if I do, it will be because I truly want to.