Atticus
YESTERDAY, I WOULD HAVE thought this was a dream. I would have been alarmed by what my own twisted mind could conjure. But now, now I sit back, settled somewhere deep inside of myself as I witness the destruction happening around me.
This thing is going to kill my family. Cameron. And I can do nothing.
“No,” Cameron whispers, his body settled on the floor as he looks up at me in terror. “I can’t.”
“Sic, you can,” I hear myself say. “You will.”
Guilt and shame overcome me. How long has this thing been using Cameron’s love against me? All those dreams I’ve had of touching him—were they all real? Has this thing been assaulting him the way Atlas was assaulted?
“Come here, Cam,” Julian calls out, never taking his eyes off me.
Cameron stands, but I’m next to him in a flash.
No. No!
But it doesn’t matter how hard I try to scream, to move away, to do anything. My body isn’t mine to control anymore. It doesn’t belong to me, and it’s all my fault.
My body leans down, placing my mouth to Cameron’s ear. “Don’t you crave forever? I feel how you want him. You both want forever.”
It’s using my own affection to harm him. It’s a manipulative, toxic dance that I’ve caught this sweet man in.
Cameron’s eyes are glazed over with tears, his body shaking as I keep him in my grasp. Let go, I scream, but no sound comes out.
Footsteps pound against the floor overhead, and suddenly Mother and Father reappear, pressing themselves to Julian and Atlas.
“Don’t do this, honey,” Mother cries, her normally perfectly composed face covered in tears.
“Silence!” my own distorted voice demands, and Cameron flinches in my hold. “Begin again.”
Cameron lifts his gaze to my family, lips trembling.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his fingers gripping the paper I translated this stupid spell onto so many months ago. “Demon of night, you who dwells in the shadows…”
Something pleasure-filled and light expands in my chest again, and I resist the urge to groan in a mixture of pain and desire.
Oh, god. I’m going to die. I’m going to be cursed to live inside of this monster until I wither away or outright evaporate when he’s done.
My poor, sweet baby brother is being forced to experience this tragedy all over again. Cameron is going to die under the guilt of what he’s doing. And everyone else is being forced to observe this catastrophe firsthand.
But I’m powerless. I’m nothing in this moment. I cannot protect anyone.
Something in me crumbles; the fight is forced out of me. This destiny is inevitable, and sending Cameron away didn’t protect him from it. The pain was pointless.
“Meet me here in the valley of the living,” Cameron continues.
“No!” my brother shouts, attempting to free himself from Father’s hold. “Stop it! You’re going to kill him!”
“Atty,” Julian placates, his voice trembling.
“I have to do it! I have to! If I don’t, it’s going to hurt us all,” Cameron cries. And as his eyes flicker back to me, so wet and full of terror, I feel a small part of my soul die. “I’m so sorry, Atticus. I’m so, so fucking sorry.”
“If you do this, I’ll kill you,” Atlas grits out through his own tears, struggling like a wild animal against the arms that hold him.
It’s Julian now, who’s taken to wrapping Atlas up tight with a protective agony.
“I should have told you it was visiting me,” Cameron confesses to me, the real me that sits deep inside, tears soaking his face, his voice dropping to a quiet guilt.
“I should have resisted. I just wanted you, you know? I wanted to have you in whatever way I could; I just never imagined it was like this.”
“Finish, corculum,” is my only response.
Cameron takes in a stuttering, sob-filled breath and obeys. He always, always obeys. “I call your name, with these words my soul I expose; grant my wish for a price befitting.”
“Julie, make him stop! Oh, god, make him stop!” Atlas screeches.
I can hear my parents crying, watching me with terrified eyes.
“Prince of darkness, extend your hand—”
My body begins to vibrate, to shove a gleeful pulse under my skin. It feels so good, and it makes me sick.
This is it. This is the moment in which I force the man who loves me to kill me, to give my body to another. Where my family is forced to watch.
“and I will be your humble—”
Julian takes a step forward, shoving Atlas at our father as if he will fight me off all on his own. He will put an end to this.
Sweet, martyring idiot.
“Everyone, stop.” The voice is commanding, calm, and collected.
Barfred shoves past my parents, past Julian and Atlas. I didn’t hear him coming; I didn’t know he was here this late.
“Continue,” I hiss, glaring at Cameron as he trembles.
But he doesn’t speak. He looks to Barfred like the man will save him, his entire body taut and strained.
Barfred walks into the center of the room, completely composed as he levels me with a steady stare.
“Atticus,” he calls out. “It’s time to wake up.”
Is he… he is talking to me?
“Leave, maga,” I snap. But I can feel it: the fear and the anxiety now coating the pleasure I was just feeling.
It’s… the demon in control of me fears Barfred.
“Wake up,” Barfred continues calmly. “Or I will force you.”
“You will die tonight,” I tell him. “I will rip you apart.”
Barfred does not respond, as if it’s below him, as if he’s unafraid. And for a moment, a brief second of relief, I feel hope.
And then it is gone.
I’m across the room in a flash, my hand wrapped around Atlas’s throat as I rip him from my father’s grip, lifting his feet from the ground.
He sputters, kicking out at me and clawing at my hand as his big blue eyes drill into mine—wide, wet, and terrified.
“Stop,” Julian screams. He rushes me, landing a hard punch on my cheek.
I don’t even budge, only gripping his black hair with my other hand, slinging him across the room and into the bookcase. I can feel the strength pulsing through me, the anger, and the desire to kill.
To end them all.
My father comes at me next, his eyes full of guilt and agony as he tries to tackle me to the ground. Only he doesn’t make it close enough to actually try.
My hand shoves into his chest, cracking open his sternum until I can feel the beat of his heart against my fingertips. And then I pull it straight from his chest, watching his blood drip from my hand and his body slump to the ground, lifeless.
Mother falls to her knees, crawling down the steps to hold him, sobbing.
I scream. I scream so fucking loudly it hurts, but nobody can hear me. Nobody can see the struggle beneath my skin, the one in which I’m killing everyone I love and can’t stop.
Can’t fight.
Father is dead; Julian isn’t moving.
Atlas squirms, his face purple as he cries, lips moving as if he’s trying to beg, to scream, to apologize.
And then he stops moving, his body dangling lifeless in my hand. I watch the life leave his innocent eyes, turning them into nothing I recognize.
And then I drop him to the ground.
Fog curls around my feet, making my brain feel disoriented as I turn back to Cameron, who stands behind the podium, pale and immobilized as he stares at the carnage.
And then his eyes find mine.
“Say it. Now,” I demand, taking a step over Atlas’s body as I near him.
“You’ll have to kill me,” Cameron whispers, his body shaking with fear. “I won’t do it. Kill me.”
And I know I will. I can feel it in the very marrow of my bones that I will end his life if he disobeys me. Fear spikes my blood pressure as I near him, and it feels as if I’m clawing against an immovable, untouchable wall.
I’m barricaded away from this moment, slowly falling apart as I rip my entire life to shreds.
As I stand before him, Cameron’s eyes slide closed, his hands falling away from the Black Book.
My fingers grip his chin, yanking him against me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, soft and pained. “I love you; I will die loving you.”
A warm, calloused hand cups my cheek, his stormy eyes opening to stare into mine.
“It’s alright,” he whispers. “I know you don’t want to do it. I know you’re in there, suffering.”
My hand twitches, my body tensing up.
I am here. I am suffering. Cameron still loves me, even now.
I’m pushing against this untouchable wall so hard, so desperately that it hurts. I feel my head swell with pressure, and my skin stings.
“I forgive you for whatever you’ll do to me,” Cameron continues, stroking my skin softly. “And if things were different, if we could have had more time—” his voice becomes thick, choked with tears, “I would have loved you forever.”
So much desperate pain is filling my body. I can barely breathe, can barely think around the intensity of it.
I killed my father, my brother—potentially Julian, who only ever loved my family with everything he had.
If Cameron dies too, if I take his life with my own hands, I will end my own existence as soon as I’m back in control. As soon as I come to.
Cameron’s hand moves from my cheek, gently covering my own where I still have his chin in my grip.
“I surrender, Atticus. You have all of me; do what you need to,” he murmurs.
I do. I crash my lips against his in a cold, biting kiss as I wrap my fingers around his throat just as I did Altas.
And the beautiful, trusting man before me tenses just briefly before he relaxes completely in my grip, kissing back with a thick passion as he twitches and convulses against me.
Each one of his gasps enters my mouth, and I swallow them greedily as I take his life, his future, his love.
I’m screaming again, pushing against the wall keeping me hidden away. I can feel my own body fighting me, tensing and trembling with a force close to a seizure.
Cameron’s face goes purple as I kiss him, open-eyed and angry. And his stormy gray eyes never leave mine, watching me as I take his breath.
“Wake up, Atticus,” I hear Barfred call out from where he still stands in the center of the room, unmoving. “Save him.”
That fog grows thicker, and the more it condenses, the less sturdy this immovable wall feels. The sharp nails wrapped around Cameron’s neck pierce his skin, almost hard enough to draw blood, and he whimpers.
A soft, broken sound.