50. Bastian #3
But I’m already standing, ready to fetch something to wrap the cuts, ready to keep her blood inside her.
She grabs my pant leg, tugging. “No! Please, Bash! I can’t do this alone!”
Blood traces sinuous lines down her pale arm as she stares up at me.
I kick off my shoes and climb into the tub behind her, still fully clothed, the water instantly soaking through my pants.
She lets out a relieved sigh, sinking back against me. She’s somehow heavier than any time I carried her, yet the pressure of her body against mine is…euphoric.
I wrap my arms around her, my hands gliding down the back of her arms. I grab her hands and twist them so I can see the cuts I made along her wrists.
Her blood flows faster now—a thin, intermittent stream trickling into the bath. The water turns pink, then red. Sybil’s humming is getting softer, her body growing heavier against mine. She rolls her head onto my shoulder and lets out another sigh.
I can feel her heart beating against my chest.
Too fast. Too faint.
Like a baby bird that knows it’s dying.
“Light shows what eyes shouldn’t see,” I murmur, pressing my lips to her damp hair.
“But the dark keeps bad places safe for me,” she finishes in a desperate whisper.
I hold her a little tighter and try to ignore the press of her body against mine.
Holding her wrist, sliding that blade through her flesh—everything leading up to this point—is doing strange things to my mind and body.
But all it takes is a soft growl in the back of my head for the judgment to pass.
Is that the bad wolf?
I snuggle closer to Billy, nuzzling the side of her neck until all I can smell is lavender and blood and her.
“I love you, Bash.”
“I know,” I murmur.
But it’s not enough. I know it’s not enough, not just from the way she tenses against me. There’s a sickening weight in my stomach.
“I…” I force a hard swallow and croak out, “I love you too.”
A shadow flickers over us.
For a perversely surreal moment, I’m convinced it’s Billy’s soul leaving her body.
Especially when Billy murmurs, “Oh!” like her life is starting to flash before her eyes.
But then I hear the faint flutter, and I look up to see a moth circling the bathroom light.
It must have come in through the bathroom window that we always leave open, despite the weather.
It’s supposed to help with the mildew and mold, but at the rate those black spots are advancing on the ceiling, we’d need a nuke.
It flutters around the room before heading back toward the light. It ventures close enough for me to capture it.
I cup it gently in my hands as it flutters against my palms, and I bring it down to rest on the back of Billy’s bloody wrist.
The moth walks across her hand, its wings catching the light. Brown and gray, nothing special, but Sybil watches it like it’s the most precious thing in the world.
Her head lolls against my shoulder.
“Bash?”
“Yeah, Billy?”
“Will you stay with me? Just until—”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise you’ll stay?”
“I promise.”
“No…promise me you won’t follow me.”
I open my mouth and then close it again.
“Promise you’ll stay, Bash. Promise me your life will be full of love and joy.”
She’s delusional from loss of blood, of course. Nothing about my life will ever be joyful. Love is merely an illusion. A fiction told in fairy tales and romance books. And even if it was real, I’d have to leave the safety of the shadows to find it.
We’re creatures of the dark, Billy and I. That’s The Witch’s curse.
But I shove all those thoughts away and say, “I promise,” because Billy doesn’t need to hide in the shadows anymore.
“Thank you, Bash.”
I know she’s not just referring to the promise I already plan to break.
My sister just thanked me for killing her.
She hums a few more bars of the hymn as the water turns red.
The moth flies away. The humming stops.
And Billy—my only friend in this godforsaken world—finally breaks free of her jar.
The bathroom is silent except for the drip of the faucet and the flutter of moth wings against the window as it tries to find the exit.
When it finally escapes, I realize I’m alone.
Absolutely, achingly alone.
I fancy Billy hitched a ride to heaven on the wings of that moth. If anyone deserves a fairy-tale ending, it’s my little sister.
I stay in the bloody, milky water until it goes cold.
Then I get out, change into dry clothes, and climb out the bedroom window into the chilly night.
I don’t cry.
Not even when I look up and see the moon glowing in the sky.
I haven’t experienced joy in a decade, if not more. Sadness didn’t last long either. Now all I experience is rage and spite and malice…but now that Billy’s gone, I know those will atrophy too.
There is no place for emotion in my world. I’ve never had a soul, and Billy took my heart with her when she fluttered out of her broken jar.
You can’t break what you can’t touch.
That was Billy’s only weakness.
She could never give up that most fragile part of herself, like I did.
If she had, The Witch would never have been able to trap her.
And I would never have had to set her free.