Chapter 2 Completely, Utterly Empty #2
She’d never seen her brother’s best friend like this.
His black hair went every which way, as if he’d run his hands through it countless times.
The buttons of his white dress shirt were undone, the garment untucked from his pants.
His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and his tie was a discarded crumble of fabric in the corner.
Nikhail pressed his lips against her knuckles and whispered her name. The sound was a desperate plea. “This is real, right? You’re finally awake.”
River’s throat was dry and scratchy as she swallowed. “Yes,” she rasped, the word rough. “I think so?”
She wasn’t sure, if she was being honest, but it seemed real. It felt real. Her body strained towards Nikhail, like a magnet desperate to get to its other half.
Something was still wrong, though. That emptiness remained, and River knew she was missing something.
She couldn’t figure out what exactly that was, though.
The air fae exhaled, and tears slipped down his cheeks. Tears. She’d never seen him cry, not once during all the years of their acquaintance.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” Nikhail admitted.
There was so much to unpack in that sentence, and River’s mind whirled. Seeming to realize she needed time to think, Nikhail snagged a water bottle from behind him. He twisted off the cap before holding it to her lips. He watched as she drank, a silver line streaking down his cheek.
Nikhail was hurting, and his pain felt like it was River’s in a way that didn’t fully make sense. She wanted to raise her hand and wipe his tear away. She wanted to ensure that Nikhail never got hurt again.
Which was insane.
Right?
It seemed that way.
Unable to parse through all the complicated feelings coursing through her, River settled for licking her dry lips and murmuring, “You’re crying.”
He tipped his chin but didn’t attempt to wipe away the evidence of his pain. “I thought I’d lost you to your magic. That the storm had taken you.”
Nikhail’s words shook something loose inside River. Reminded her of why she was here. What she’d done.
Tight bands wrapped around River’s chest, squeezing tighter and tighter as fragmented memories washed through her mind. Bits and pieces slowly came back to her, each more devastating than the last.
She remembered pulling over on the side of the road.
Clambering out of the car.
Falling to the ground.
Threads of control, slipping out of her hands.
Her magic, racing out of her.
Her soul fragmenting. Breaking. Not cleanly, into a few pieces that could easily be mended. No, it had shattered.
And if River had broken, if she’d lost control again, even after all her efforts to keep her magic at bay…
“No,” she whispered pleadingly. She didn’t know who she was directing the word to, but it didn’t stop her from repeating it over and over again in her mind.
No, no, no.
Please, gods, no.
River wished that this wasn’t real, that she was still stuck in that dark, unknowing place from before. Because that…
Gods help her, but that had been better than this.
Better than piecing the scattered shards of her memory together. Better than remembering what had happened. Better than being forced to sit in the knowledge of what had pushed her over the edge.
Everything ached.
Her heart, her mind, her soul.
“My dad is gone. Isn’t he?” River could barely force the words out of her lips, but she had to know. Had to hear Nikhail confirm it. Hearing the words would make her nightmares real.
His gaze was sympathetic, and even before he spoke, she knew. Still yet, she waited for him to hoarsely whisper, “I’m sorry, River.”
Tears welled, and her bottom lip wobbled. “He’s… he died.”
Not a question, but gods, River wished it was. She wished none of this was happening.
“Yes.” Nikhail’s voice was soothing, but even the gentlest of voices couldn’t stop those bands from wrapping around her heart. “Two weeks ago.”
What? How could that be?
River must’ve spoken the question out loud, because Nikhail’s lips pinched in a line. He squeezed her hand, his fingers still intertwined with hers. “You were drained. Nearly empty.”
“Magical exertion?”
“Yes.” His voice was low. “Do you remember?”
Storm clouds rolling in. Water pouring from the sky in endless sheets. Children’s laughs morphing into screams.
Because River had lost control.
A fist clamped down on River’s lungs as her memories fully revealed themselves. She trembled and shook her head back and forth, as if that could change what had already been done. The lives she’d already taken.
She’d depleted herself, which meant she’d called an intense storm.
How many more deaths were on her conscience?
“Breathe, River,” Nikhail reminded her. He spoke to her gently, as if she weren’t a murderer hundreds of times over. “Inhale.”
She didn’t really want to, but her body reacted to him regardless and did as he asked.
“Good. Exhale.”
Her breath left her in a whoosh. This wasn’t better, though. No, it was far, far worse. Now, she remembered everything.
Her night with Nikhail. Returning to Waterborn House, feeling on top of the world.
Being greeted by ominous silence. The cutting sound of her mother’s grief, a cleaver that sliced her open.
Running upstairs. Seeing her father’s lifeless body, knowing that the Stillness had finally stolen him from them.
Taking her father’s convertible. Calling Nikhail, and…
“You didn’t pick up the phone.” She met his gaze once more, her voice as shattered as she felt inside. “I called you, Nik.”
She’d needed him.
“I know.” Grief and shame looked back at her. “I failed you, River. I’m so sorry.”
“You promised,” she said hoarsely, her mind stuck on that night and the way she’d lost control again. She’d proven, once and for all, that she was dangerous and deadly and cursed.
“I did.”
River stared at Nikhail, who had said she wasn’t a danger to him, but then…
“I summoned a storm.”
No mantra or training could shield her from the truth now. Her father was gone. She’d lost control, and…
Water climbing. Bodies floating. So much death. So many souls. She would forever bear the weight of them on her conscience.
Sorrow flashed across Nikhail’s face, but he didn’t lie to her. Thank the gods for that small mercy. “Yes.”
River shuddered. “It was awful,” she admitted. “Stronger than anything I’ve ever felt.”
Her magic had surged out of her, uncontained.
Cursed, cursed, cursed.
The word echoed through every single fucking part of her.
It was truer now than ever.
“I know. I was there. I came.”
Nikhail had fulfilled his promise eventually… but he’d been too late.
All her therapy, all her mantras, all her training and stolen moments pretending to be normal had all come down to this.
River had called another storm, this one in Golden City. Near children.
She pulled her hand from Nikhail’s, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her muscles ached from disuse, and the movement caused ripples of pain to race through her, but she didn’t make a sound.
She deserved this pain, and so much more.
Pressing her forehead to her knees, River tried to quiet the screams playing on repeat in her mind. She couldn’t seem to make them stop, though. If anything, they grew louder.
Each cry of distress left a mark on her soul.
How long?
How long had her new victims cried for help while water filled their lungs? How long had they suffered? How long had they fought back?
Another question entered her mind. One that was even more horrifying than all the others.
How many had she killed?
This, she knew, would ruin her. It would tip her over the edge into insanity. She’d already taken so many lives; adding to that quota would be the end of her.
But as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t hide from the truth.
Because this…
This was the cost of her curse.
It took her minutes, or maybe hours, before she was able to force her lips to move. “Did I… The people, I mean. How many are…”
Dead.
The word was silent as it bounced around them.
“None,” Nikhail said.
“What?”
That was… no. That was impossible. How could that be? River had called a storm. She lost control. She was cursed.
Nikhail’s lips lifted briefly.
“No one died, River.” Nikhail moved from the chair he’d been occupying to perch on the edge of the bed. “Can I hold you?”
She nodded numbly, her mind still replaying his words. How was it possible that no one had died? Nikhail’s arms wrapped around River, sturdy and strong. He tucked her against his side, his warmth emanating through her.
“You didn’t kill a soul,” he said.
Nikhail was a fae, which meant he was physically incapable of lying, as was she.
But these words.
What he was saying…
“How?” she asked.
The way River’s storm had lashed out of her, ravaging everything in sight, she would’ve expected to wake up in a cell. That would’ve made sense. After all, she’d endangered countless people.
But this wasn’t that.
The room was small and sparsely furnished, but it wasn’t a prison.
There was a single twin bed and the armchair Nikhail had been occupying, along with a coat rack.
An open door led into a small bathroom. A folded blanket sat on top of a pillow near Nikhail’s chair, beside a laptop bag, but that was it.
There were no bars, no chains. Nothing keeping her locked in here.
Nikhail brushed his thumb across her cheek. “When I saw the storm, I knew it was yours. The wind shifted, then clouds rolled in.”
He kept talking. His low, steady voice was the only thing that kept her grounded as he explained what had happened.
The way the rain had hit out of nowhere. Therian, bringing him to her. How he’d seen her on the ground and raced for her, calling her name.
“I don’t remember any of that,” she confessed. “It just… hurts, Nik.”
The pain in her heart, her curse, her grief.
It all hurt, and River wasn’t sure she could survive this. The worst part was that River wasn’t sure how much of her was broken. She was afraid to count the shattered pieces of her heart.
“I know, River.” Nikhail ran his hand down her hair and held her to him. “I came for you, and the water was rising.”
“I was alone,” she murmured, remembering the way her magic had crashed through her veins.
Nikhail shuddered, but he didn’t dispute her claim. “I found you, and I… I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t know how else to stop you.”
She struggled to keep up with what he was saying. “Do what?”
Nikhail reached for River’s left arm, slowly pushing up the sleeve of her baggy sweater. Her hands were paler than normal, her skin clinging to her bones, and on her wrist…
A black cuff circled her arm. River’s breath caught. With jerky movements, she tugged up her other sleeve. Another manacle.
Then, for the first time since she woke, River looked beyond the furniture in the sparse room. At the walls. The floor. The ceiling. They were all made of the same glistening black material.
Just like the cuffs.
Prohiberis.
“Oh,” she whispered. “That’s why I’m empty.”