40. Nicholas
Nicholas
This was no quick, neat death. No snap of a blade or a clear ring of metal against metal.
Battles used to be simple. A twist of a sword and every subsequent hit sent your enemy backward. Many times I’d taken out the stress of leadership on whatever poor bastard met me on the battlefield.
Now I drop to one knee, healing at last spreading through me with Isvargr’s demise.
We did it. We took down the fucking ice wolf of Jotunheimr.
Helene’s eyes are wide when I glance at her, surprise flashing across her face. Alive. Bleeding.
For the first time my hunger doesn’t rise, though I’m filled with the sudden rush of unease.
Helene has seen something she wasn’t prepared to see. Shock, pain, I understand those flashes of emotion.
But when I fix my eyes to hers, I can’t place her expression.
She does her best to school her features into something less vulnerable and open, but she’s given something away she hadn’t expected. Something she shouldn't have.
Wren clears his throat. “I don’t suppose anyone wants to say a few words for our poor, frozen friend?”
Isvargr melts away, his corpse trickling into the icy ground until only the suggestion of the wolf’s carcass remains. Soon even that will disappear and leave only the carnage behind.
I straighten, shaking off the last bits of flaking dead skin. New epidermis with my old blemishes surface and I scrub a hand along my forearm to slough off the rest.
“You…you killed it.”
“I believe we did,” I reply.
She clears her throat. “What was it?”
“He was a jotun, a frost giant from a different world.”
Helene turns her head as Forest draws closer. It’s bizarre to watch her look him in the eye when she won’t meet mine. I open my mouth but the prick of my fangs stops me short.
There’s no small smile to be found until Audra stumbles forward. The sisters embrace, and I’m numb.
There’s a strange gulf between my body and my emotions. This physical form heals well enough. There is no shaking. Nothing beside the thrumming of my heart as it matches Helene’s terribly rushed pace and a lingering pain it's too soon to label as a problem.
The part of me that ever felt anything floated away a long time ago. I stopped being frightened of it.
But the way my mind loses its grip? That worries me.
“Are you okay?” Helene holds Audra at arm’s length and her gaze travels over the girl from top to bottom.
The girl has no answer. Her hair loose, plastered to her by the ice, makes her look so young.
“I’m sorry, kid.” Helene’s voice breaks. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
The newfound silence is deafening.
Panic bleeds out of us while the two sisters cling to each other, their eyes squeezed tight, the relief of their reunion palpable.
It bursts through my awareness and leaves agony behind.
Suddenly I’m exhausted.
Forest staggers over to the two of them and gathers both in the shelter of his arms, holding them tight enough to his chest to suffocate.
“I land the killing blow and she still goes to him first.” Wren rolls his eyes as if to say typical.
I catch my reflection in his eyes, though. Stricken. Spattered with the odd ichor of the fallen frost giant, my clothes torn and my legs blackened with sodden dead skin.
Alive. For how long?
We’ve tried to alter the outcome before. I’ve stayed away from her. Moved halfway across the world to break the cycle with distance. I spent a full five hundred years asleep, sealing myself away in a tomb in Nigeria.
Inevitably, Helene ends up drained. Stabbed. Shot. Hung. Decapitated. There is no limit to the way she perishes yet it’s always by my hand.
She always bleeds no matter the care we take or the control. The totality of her death threatens to suffocate me.
So what if we brought Isvargr down?
This is only the beginning.
Wind stills, and a new rush of pine needles crest the top of the bank near my knees.
The winter storm steals most hints of autumn, and this snow will take more than a plow to erase. With the unnatural cold setting in and gripping this place, winter’s come early.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready for some more delicious coffee,” Wren says, breaking the tense silence. “What do you say, monster? Let's get you home.”
The implications are clear. She’d tried to run. This is how it turned out.
“I’m down for coffee if you’re buying.” Audra doesn’t move.
She can’t.
Responding to her unspoken weakness, Forest hoists her into his arms. “Then let’s go. We’ve lingered here too long.”
“I’ll lead the way.”
Wren disappears, Forest in tow, trekking to town. I glance up from my feet to find Helene standing a pace behind the others. Alone with me.
She turns away and at last the can of hairspray drops from her palm, leaving its mark in the redness of her skin.
We stand in silence, neither one of us sure of the right words to penetrate the heaviness of the moment. The longer we wait, the easier it is to remember the sweetness of her blood, and pick it out among the cold.
She’s soaked through her makeshift bandage, the fabric stained crimson with it.
Only a few hours ago, the world had been small. Now it’s collapsed around us and all the power of the intimacy we shared is alchemized into something else. Something larger than anyone has the capacity to label.
“Is this how it’s always going to be?” Helene’s voice breaks the night.
My gaze lingers on her frozen lips when they part, and her exhale shakes both of us. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“This,” she hisses. “This fight. The hits keep coming, boom. One right after another. We can’t run. And if we stay, there’s only a new obstacle blocking the path. That thing was here for me.”
It’s the story of her life summarized in a few neat sentences.
“Would you like a lie? Or the truth.”
I’m afraid to touch her. My hands reach for her anyway across distance, sensation curdling my blood.
Now her eyes refuse to leave mine. “Lies won’t accomplish anything.”
She stares at me, at my inhuman face, and the relief whirling through her like this storm is too much. I glance away from the flicker of pain in her eyes.
“Then yes. It will keep happening. It always does,” I growl. “It’s moving faster now. Usually we have more time—”
“To what?” she interrupts. “To suffer?”
“To struggle,” I agree.
Helene glances over her shoulder at the car, pounded into oblivion.
“Does no one care how exhausting it is? Isn’t love supposed to be the easiest thing in the world?”
Love has nothing and everything to do with this. my hand spasms and the song of her blood grows louder the longer we stand. Fear sweeps through me like wildfire.
“Love isn’t the question here, ruin.” I curse, straining to pull away from her when pure animal instinct demands I speed my healing with her. “Love is easy. What I feel for you, what we all agreed to, is easy. It’s just that nothing else is.”
“Nothing else,” she repeats, her wooden steps falling in behind me.
Helene staggers, and I whip around, hands snatching at her elbows to keep her upright. A strangled whimper pries free, and I lift them in a shield in front of me. Horrified that I’ve hurt her.
“It’s not you. When the giant pulled me from the car, I strained myself trying to stop it.”
“Him.”
Her eyes squeeze shut, and she falters, slows.
I shake my head in frustration. “Love is bittersweet.”
“You don’t love me.”
The statement is a stake to the heart, and I swallow down an automatic, guttural refusal.
“We came for you. Didn’t we?” Don’t we always?
Silence reigns again, and I stomp behind her, pushing her forward. The grooves of the tire tracks are covered with a layer of hail over snow.
Don’t touch her.
There’s no stopping me from grabbing her. Not when her shiver sets in. Not when she bows in on herself and lets me gather her into my arms. I’m no warmer than the woods. But the fire inside her has gone out.
“Let’s get you home,” I grunt.
She’ll try to run again. It’s practically guaranteed at this point. She hides behind strength the same way I hide behind being an asshole.
Only she’s too smart to let it go too far. Her escape plans will amount to the equivalent they did this time. Death. Destruction.
Next time we might be lucky. Or we might not.
She rests her cheek on my heart. Does she recognize the way we match now?
Her eyes flutter shut again and mine scans the glittering surface of snow where the others already tread.
“You did come for me. Audra and I would be dead if you hadn’t shown up.”
What does it prove?
Her scent intoxicates me. My fangs stay descended, brushing against my lower lip.
“We always will. But it won’t get easier. It’s guaranteed. The best we can do is hang on tight, as there’s no going back.”
Thick quiet greets my words, and they linger between us, devouring any comfort.
“Why not?” she demands finally. “Why can’t I go back? What happens if I don’t accept any of this? My life might not have been what I wanted it to be, but it was mine.”
Now it’s not. The curse assures it. There’s no room for a natural reunion, only forced proximity and pain.
I shake my head like it will dislodge the sheer terror at her questions. “Hiding from this is not who you are.”
“It is exactly who I am, not what you want me to be.”
“You want this. There’s no denying it, and you are too stubborn to accept an easy way out.”
Her tremor rolls through me.
“You take it all because you know you were ruined for anything else before you met us. Say it.”
I shouldn’t push her.
“I want to go back.” A shuddering breath seeps through her teeth. “I want to be safe.”
“You were never safe. It was only luck that kept you trapped in your small life,” I reply. “Now it’s done. Now, we’re going home.”
There’s no horror in her features at the harsh words. There’s no relief, either. Yet she refuses to back away when I stare down at her the way a predator would with bleeding prey.
“You don’t want anyone else. You’ll say it eventually. You’ll beg for the three of us. I’m willing to wait for you to admit it. We might not be lucky enough to get that time.”
I cut through the snow until the vibrations change. We’ve made it out to the road.
“Do you ever stop to think there’s more to life than struggle”? she asks in a dead voice. “You have a choice. You’re immortal. Powerful. I’m sure you’ve got the money to do and be whatever you want. Why not take it?”
I swallow hard. “What use is wealth or power when I don’t have you?”
She laughs but there’s no fullness to the sound. “Pretty lies.”
“Ugly truth,” I correct.
“I never should have opened the door. Mom always said there was a good reason to be wary of strangers.”
"Your mother sounds like a smart woman."
Helene huffs. "Funny. It didn't save her. Did it?"
When the first crests of buildings waver in the gloom, Helene pushes against me. I set her on her feet, steadying her until she can manage to walk on her own. Eventually her arm laces through mine at the elbow.
I clamp down, jaw tight, keeping a hold on whatever fragile stability I provide like this is a concession.
With the heavy hush of the blue world, with the muffled peace of the snow around us and the distant cutting of the occasional plane engine overhead, I might imagine an existence where this cycle is the last.
I know better than to dream of success.
I know better.