Chapter Fifteen
MERRICK - FIVE YEARS AGO
Two months later…
I clutched my chest, whipping my blanket off my sweating body. Heart pounding, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to make sense of what was happening to me.
And then I heard her scream, her desperate cry. Or did I feel it? I rushed out of my bedroom just as Torrin hurriedly entered Elowen’s. I followed close behind.
“What’s going on?!” Elowen panicked groggily, stumbling out of bed, rubbing her eyes.
Torrin’s voice was but a broken whisper. “The baby.”
Gods. No.
Torrin instructed us quickly. I gathered a large handful of towels as he dampened a rag with cool water. And then we ran to her.
My heart shattered the minute I saw her suffering on the floor. “Please, help me,” she cried. Elowen quickly nodded, rushing to her and placing a palm over her belly. Torrin hurried to her other side, holding the rag to her forehead, trying his hardest to remain calm.
And I just stood there. Frozen.
Elowen’s palms were glowing, her focus unwavering. Lena’s voice was small and broken as she asked, “Is the baby okay?”
The seconds of silence passed like hours, and dread filled my veins as Elowen’s glow faded… as her emotions told me the heartbreaking truth.
Tears spilled down my sister’s face. “I...I am so sorry, Lena.”
As her words registered, the sound around me grew muffled. These emotions, the feelings of everyone, rattled me.
Too much. Too much. Too much.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t turn it off. Why couldn’t I turn it off?
Another contraction wrecked Lena, and it snapped me out of my stupor. I rushed to her side. “Do something,” I urged Elowen.
“I can’t!” she cried. “The baby has no heartbeat.”
My exhale was shaky, and I squeezed my eyes shut again as Lena’s pain became my own.
No, no, no, no.
I cursed as I opened my eyes. Fuck. Lena was covered in blood. So much blood.
“Your body is expelling the baby,” Elowen’s voice shook. “I… I can relieve your pain.”
Lena immediately protested, and I said calmly, “We just need to be here with her, Elowen.”
Lena’s shattered gaze found mine, and she nodded.
I didn’t know how long we stayed together, didn’t know at what point I knelt beside her, holding her hand as she went through hell. I felt every wave of pain she did, tears pouring down my face just as they poured down hers.
Her hand was so hot in my grasp. “She’s burning up.”
Torrin whispered, “I know.”
My throat tightened with bile when I caught a glance of the small child wrapped in Elowen’s towel.
“I can’t,” Lena choked. “Please, please, I can’t look!”
What could be more devastating than this? I knew the horrific pain of losing a parent…but to lose a child…
I was pulled out of my thoughts by a sharp pain. On instinct, I tugged my hand out of Lena’s. “Shit!” My eyes flared at my reddened flesh.
Oh, Gods.
Fire… she was getting fire!
“Merrick…what did I—”
Torrin scooped up Lena immediately, her blood staining his clothes. He rushed out of the room, then out of our home, Elowen and I trailing behind him.
“Go, you two!” Torrin barked at us once we caught up to him just outside of Ames. Lena was on the ground, the snow around her melting from her heat. “It’s too dangerous!”
“But Torrin—” I began.
“GO!”
We both hesitated, then ran back.
Torrin had gotten his flame. He could save her. I knew it.
The following twenty minutes passed in a blur. It was awful informing Minerva, who’d been startled awake as we had hurried out of the house. It was both devastating and a relief to see Lena when she and Torrin finally came back, blisters covering her flesh and his hand wrecked from the damage.
My selfless cousin insisted that Elowen heal Lena instead of him, which left me to tend to his wounds, even though we both knew my magic wasn’t enough to mend the damage completely. Torrin was quiet the entire time, his gaze unfocused as he stared at the ground.
After an entire evening of healing, I expected my sister to be out like a light. Instead, the following morning, I found her behind our home, kneeling in the snow.
“El?” I asked carefully.
My lip trembled as she placed a painted stone, one after another, on a freshly dug grave. “I couldn’t ask Lena. But…I buried the baby.”
She was shaking. My fourteen-year-old sister had been the bane of my existence ever since her conception tore my parents apart. But I realized now that she was a force. Stronger and more capable than I ever gave her credit for. Brave and caring and strong. So damn strong.
“She couldn’t look…I don’t blame her.” She sighed. “But I had to. I had to know, in case she may wish to one day.” Her tearful eyes lifted, and she gave me the most pitiful, broken smile, holding up a rock she had painted. A yellow circle with lines extending around. “A son.”
I bit my upper lip, pressure forming behind my eyes. And when Elowen placed that final rock on the boy’s resting place and stood, I wrapped her in my embrace.
I’d never hugged my sister before.
With her head pressed against me, Elowen broke down in my arms, wailing into my chest.
I rubbed her back, then squeezed her tightly. “You’re so strong, El. So brave.”
“I…” Choking on air, she sobbed, “I don’t want you to hate me anymore. Please, please don’t hate me anymore.”
“El…I don’t.” My heart broke. “I love you.”
She tore away, eyes widened. “W-What did you say?”
I’d never once uttered the words to her. I’d always brushed her aside, even though our father’s wrongdoings were never her fault.
I brushed away her tears. “Come now. I wouldn’t listen to boy drama and tales of painted rocks if I didn’t love the person.”
She laughed and cried at the same time, wrapping me in a hug again. “I love you, too, Merrick,” she whispered. “So much. I’ve always looked up to you.”
Guilt clouded my mind. “I don’t know why. All I do is brood and smoke.” She chuckled between her sobs. “I’ve been a shit brother.”
“No, you haven’t,” she whispered. “You’ve been hurting, and I’m sorry.”
My chest squeezed painfully, and I didn’t reply, just continued to hold her shaking form.
But then my gaze lifted, catching the eyes of the man I hated more than anyone.
His tearful eyes, his soft smile…my sister’s relief was being replaced by my father’s. By the joy that his two children bonding brought him.
And it enraged me.
I shoved Elowen away, her face twisting in hurt and confusion, and then I stormed off without a word, off into the forest, slamming the lid to my gift shut.
Fuck him!
Fuck him!
FUCK HIM!
When I reached my usual tree, I didn’t reach for a blunt. I didn’t scream or break things. I didn’t go numb.
I cried.
I cried and cried until my eyes were swollen, until my throat was raw. I cried for Lena, for her son. I cried for Torrin, for Elowen.
I cried for my mother. I cried for myself.
Tears poured out of me, so many that I had kept inside for so many years. And I knew that no matter how much spilled out, the reservoir would never empty. No, no one could fix me now.
I would always be a bitter son, a resentful brother.
I would always be distant, cold, and afraid of real connection.
I would always be haunted by the past, by that stiff corpse with purple limbs.
By that empty void that took me prisoner the moment I tried to read her, that rattled me to the point of no return.
Forever damaged. Forever broken, just like she had been.