67. September 19, 2202 Winchester, Massachusetts
Oliver fades.
The darkness pulls at him. He can feel it, knows as if he has always known. He is one tug away from unraveling.
The whispers pull at him, too. Hold him here. Keep him whole.
I’ll miss you.
I love you.
You can go.
He can’t. He can’t leave them.
His thoughts drift to Beatrix. The faint, floral scent that was always only her. Her eyes, impossibly old, one brown and one blue, that he swore could see into his soul. See the best in him, even when he couldn’t. Beatrix, who didn’t forget him. Who still loved him, even when it hurt.
He lets every thought slip from his mind, except for her.
He starts at the beginning, with the dirty, beautiful thief who tried to steal his coin but stole his heart instead.
Not that he realized it then. He remembers every smile, every laugh, every touch, every tear.
Every memory of her that will die with him.
The whispers grow distant, the pull of the darkness stronger. Colder.
Beatrix clings to him, a desperate plea in her touch. The same plea she spoke to him that night in Barnbow. She doesn’t need words now.
Stay with me. Please. I don’t want to be alone.
He tries to hang on to her. To stay with her. But he can’t feel the warmth of her breath against his cheek. He can’t feel her tears splashing against his skin. He can’t feel her hand squeezing his.
He can’t feel anything anymore.
For the first time in Beatrix’s life, time stops. As if it died with Oliver.
“He’s gone.” Theo’s voice breaks as tears roll down his cheeks.
Zoe lets out an anguished sob from the other side of the bed, her face red, her eyes swollen.
Luke sits next to her, silent and unmoving, his head cradled in his hands.
Gone.
The word sits like ice in Beatrix’s chest, freezes her heart, traces through her veins until her insides are numb. It doesn’t matter how long she waits this time. He will never come back to her.
She can’t. Can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t stay here. She springs to her feet, and her chair tips over, thudding against the floor.
“Bea?”
It’s Theo’s voice. She knows it is. Her heart still skips a beat.
Her gaze meets his. Oliver’s eyes, but not. Not as open. Not as kind. No spark of anything to be found. Only a pool of anguish she wants to drown in. “Don’t you ever call me that again,” she says, her voice low and strangled.
Theo stares at her. Confusion clouds his swollen eyes, and then he must realize his mistake. She catches the briefest flicker before they go dark with grief again. “I’m sorry, Beatrix. I didn’t mean to…”
What was he going to say? He didn’t mean to hurt her? The word is laughably inadequate in the face of this. Theo must know it, too.
She turns on her heel, and she runs. Out of Oliver’s room, out of Oliver’s house, until she stands under a starless sky, her breath fogging in the night, her heart beating the same frantic rhythm it did that terrible day in the forest: run, run, run.
But there is nowhere she can go where she won’t find him.
Her knees give way, every thought of Oliver pulling her under until she is drowning. There is only one thing that can save her now, one way to end her pain.
Forever.
“I take it back!” she screams, guttural and raw. A desperate wish made with her entire shattered heart. She collapses to the ground. “Please,” she sobs. “Just take it back.”