50. Bastian #2
Her pronouncement takes the air out of my lungs.
She says it so calmly, so matter-of-fact, I know she’s not being dramatic. My mind scrambles as I try to figure out what to say, a way to dig her out of this ditch she’s in.
“You’re fine.”
She shakes her head, her bleeding lip quivering. “I feel wrong, Bash. Like I don’t belong in my body anymore.”
I scoff. “It’s probably just an iron deficiency or something. I’ll speak to Evelyn tomorrow. Tell her she’s gonna have to feed you more unless she wants to keep taking you to the doctor. Doctors ask questions. She doesn’t want that kind of attention—“
“I don’t want to be in this jar anymore.”
The determination in her quiet voice cuts effortlessly through my babble.
“What’s that ‘sposed to mean?” I mutter.
“I want to be free.”
“Okay,” I sit back, raking my hands through my hair.
She holds herself up in the water without my help, watching me so intently, the hairs on my nape rise.
“Okay, okay. We’re gonna clean you up. Get you dressed.
” I lower my voice. “Then you’re gonna pack some clothes, and we’re gonna climb out that window.
It’s high, but I’ll help you down. There’s a dumpster by the bakery that kinda shields the wind a bit.
We can stay there until they open. They know me by now.
They’ll help us. Maybe we can work there for a bit until—“
She presses her fingers to my mouth.
“You have to break my jar, Bash. It’s a sin if I do it, and I don’t want to swap out one hell for another. If I’m going to stand any chance of getting into heaven, you have to break my jar.”
There’s a whining in my ears, my mouth going dry. I snatch her fingers away from my mouth, shaking my head furiously.
“I can’t do that. I won’t.”
“You’re the only one who can.” She takes my hand, turning it over and pressing her lips to my inner wrist. “Please, Bash. Please.”
Tears trickle down her face, but they don’t seem to sting the wounds on her cheek because she doesn’t even seem to notice them.
“I know what I’m asking is unforgivable. After everything you’ve done for me, it’s selfish, and cruel, and the worst thing I can ever do to you. But I need your help, just one last time.”
Goosebumps break out on my skin when she kisses my wrist again. The skin is so sensitive there, it’s beyond ticklish.
Then I realize what she’s insinuating.
She’s not just asking me to kill her.
She’s telling me exactly how she wants it done.
“No!” I tug my hand free, rubbing furiously at the spot she kissed when it won’t stop tingling. “That’s…that’s murder! You’re asking me to murder you!”
“It’s okay. God won’t punish you. I promise.”
“Fuck God,” I croak. “What has He ever done for you?”
Billy winces faintly as she tries to smile at me. “He gave me you.”
I read an article in a clinical psychology quarterly a couple of weeks back.It premised that two wolves live inside every person, constantly at war. The author called them Good and Evil, which struck me as just plain lazy.
Apparently, whichever one you fed more often ultimately won.
It sounded like Jungian shadow theory packaged for mass consumption.
But I get it now.
There’s this intense internal pressure building at the base of my skull that feels almost like the start of a headache. I can feel myself being pulled in two directions—morality versus immorality. Wrong versus right.
Good Wolf versus Bad Wolf.
I guess they’re both puppies. Newly born scraps of fur, mewling for sustenance. And even though I’ve already decided what I’m going to do, I don’t know which one is about to be fed.
Is mercy killing good or evil?
Is setting someone free—through death—moral or immoral?
Will slicing my sister’s wrists and watching her bleed out in the tub forever mark me as a good man, or a monster?
My wolves are only just opening their eyes. Only just staggering to their feet.
I know there will be situations where I’ll need them both. Surely I don’t have to feed only one?
The wolves don’t weigh in on my dilemma.
I suppose I’ll have to make this choice alone.
Except…it doesn’t feel like I have a choice.
I’ve spent a considerable portion of my life doing my utmost to ensure Evelyn didn’t torture Sybil. Usually by making Evelyn even angrier at me so she’d forget to punish Billy for whatever bullshit transgression she accused my sister of committing.
I’d be a damn hypocrite if I stopped taking care of my sister right when she needs me most.
So…yeah…I guess there isn’t a choice, actually.
The resistance I’m feeling is cowardice, not guilt.
I leave Billy in the bath and stride to my room on steady legs. My mind is clear. My breathing slow and even. My hands have stopped shaking.
I keep the razor blades I stole from Evelyn’s bathroom trash in a tin under my mattress. I use them to carve things—I’m working on a chessboard at the moment, about a third of the way through carving the pieces.
I take a blade.
When I return to the bathroom, Billy is humming Hallelujah. She stops when she senses me come closer and turns to face me.
She looks insignificant in the bathtub. A pale, skeletal girl with faded hair and shadowed eyes. Like a fairy someone left tied up in their basement too long, her tiny frame starved of magic.
I sink to my knees beside the tub.
“Are you sure about this, Billy?”
She holds out her arm, nodding slowly. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever been sure of.”
I take her arm. The veins at her wrist are clearly visible under her paper-thin skin, those blue lines mapping the geography of a wilted life.
“You can’t change your mind,” I warn her.
“Why would I want to?”
The blade warms in my fingertips.
A thrill chases up my spine when I press the blade to her flesh, and that makes me hesitate.
There’s a low growl coming from somewhere inside my mind.
It feels—hungry. Desperately, desperately hungry.
“Please,” Billy whispers. “Please!”
I pierce the corner of the blade into her skin and drag it down her wrist. I expect resistance, but it’s like shearing through smooth clay.
She lets out a sharp gasp, but she doesn’t pull away.
Doesn’t scream.
Doesn’t start crying and panicking.
She starts humming again.
Her blood pours out in a rush. It swirls in the milky bathwater, its coppery scent mixing with the lavender, almost strong enough to wipe out the mildew.
“This one too,” she whispers, stretching out her other arm for me.
I cut again, trying to ignore the way my body—especially my dick—pulses in rhythm with my heart.
This time, she doesn’t even gasp as she watches the blood sluice down her wrist with those sad green eyes of hers.
“Are you scared?”
A tear races down her cheek, her lips compressing. “A-A little,” she whimpers.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No—”