Chapter Twenty-Six
Jackson
T here are different types of anger. Anger that comes from hatred, from vengeance, from passion. But the most dangerous, the most unpredictable, is rage fuelled by fear. Fear, genuine fear. Fear that turns the marrow to ice. Turns human hands into tearing claws. A beating heart to the centre of a raging storm.
She was on my list. Millie's life condensed into one of those hateful manilla files. Just another soul for me to reap.
My girl. And I was supposed to touch her, stop her heart from taking one more beat and guide her out of this world forever. This was my punishment. It had to be. Some cosmic joke for ignoring Death's requests for help. The nightmares tore me apart. I woke drenched in sweat, feeling trapped, caged, knowing I'd dreamt of him. The guilt was eating away at me. The only relief was when I was with her, and then it didn't matter. She was all I wanted.
And now I was going to lose her, anyway.
The thought of it had me full of such desperate, all-consuming dread that I didn't feel like a man anymore. I was an animal. Logic, rationality, everything I believed about what I was and what I do was being dragged away in the current of my fear. On her twenty-first birthday, in the early hours of a February morning, a drunk driver would hit Millie. She'd die in the street, surrounded by strangers outside my apartment.
I'd vomited until my stomach was raw.
Could Death's plan be cruel? Yes. I'd always believed that while the decision may be for a purpose, it was also as random as the flip of a coin. That Millie's death was just a step forward, the flap of a butterfly's wing, in whatever direction mankind was supposed to go. But Millie was my world now, and I didn't care much about the state of mankind. It wasn't that I'd stopped believing. I just didn't care about those beliefs as much as I cared for her.
And that's why I was here—to pummel Lucius in the face until he told me one of two things: that this was a sick joke or how I could stop it. I pull my arm back, slamming it towards Lucius' nose until I hear a satisfying crack.
“Take it back!” I'm roaring, one hand gripping Lucius' shirt, shoving him against one of the marble pillars deep in the archives. My yells echo off the miles and miles of yellowing files. Thomas is behind me, desperately trying to pull me off him. I can hear my shirt tearing in his hands.
“I don't know what you're talking about!” Lucius splutters, blood pouring from his nose and trickling into his mouth.
“Jax, let him go!” Thomas is yelling in my ear, but I can barely hear him above my raging pulse.
“Millie. How could you? Was it a prank? Is this my punishment? Is that how you want me to pay? How did you do it?”
“Jax, I …”
“How did you do it?” I shout so loud that my voice carries through the cathedral-like space, around narrow hallways, and high into the mountain-tall glass ceilings.
Thomas tries to pull me away again, but I don't move. Lucius lifts his head and looks me hard in the eye.
“Listen to me; I didn't do anything!”
“But her file …”
“Shit,” Thomas backs away, sudden enough that I turn around and stare at him. He runs his fingers through his hair, his face a mask of sympathy and sadness. I feel sick to my stomach. “You got a file for Millie?”
When I turn back to face Lucius, he's wiping the blood away from his face with the back of his hand and breathing hard. But it's the pain, the pity I see there, that crushes me.
“I didn't do anything to the files. If you got her file … it's because you were supposed to. I'm so sorry, Jackson.”
“Yeah, sorry, mate,” Thomas whispers.
My knees buckle, and Lucius moves forward, guiding me until my back is against one of the giant sky-skimming bookcases that line the room. Time isn't moving, and though I know what's happening around me, I feel like I'm underwater—that I'm seeing the world through an alien lens. The world has shifted, and I have no idea how to shift it back.
I slide down the bookcase until I'm sitting on the ground on the cold, marble ground. My heart throbs in my ears, and my stomach lurches like I could vomit all over again. Thomas and Lucius stand over me, watching me with concern.
“What can we do?”
“Don't say I told you so.”
Lucius flinches at my words. Millie’s file is on the floor by my feet, where I'd dropped it in raging haste. I flinch at the sight of it. It was becoming increasingly real. Lucius follows my gaze and then bends down to pick it up. He moves a few steps away from me and flicks through the pages. The brief gust of wind it creates hits me in the face as hard as a punch.
“I'm going to lose her. I've just found her, and I'm going to lose her.”
Silence. Thomas drops on his haunches and squeezes my shoulder roughly. I don't move; I just keep staring straight ahead into a future I want no part of. Thomas twists to look up at Lucius.
“Can we find another reaper? Does it have to be Jackson?”
Lucius doesn't respond. He's too busy scouring Millie's file. I can see his mind working, those cogs desperately turning as he searches for something. It soothes me a little to feel a little less alone in this. I don't deserve my friends, not after all I've done, but I'm grateful for them, anyway.
“Yeah, talk to Jeanette …” Thomas turns back to me. “She doesn't need to know all the details, but she'll find someone else …”
“She'll still be gone. That's not an option.”
Thomas groans and stands back up. Looking down at me, his face set with an authority that he doesn't really possess.
“Yeah, she'll still be gone. You don't have a say in this. This is what the plan commands.”
“I need to stop it.” As I say the words, I feel the certainty of them. I feel them in the musty air as it moves through the shelves, flutters over the files, across the marble floor and the gilded ceilings. I can't let her die. I won't. For the first time since I saw her photo, held her file in my hands, I feel the ground return beneath my feet.
“Jackson, whatever you're thinking, stop it now. There's nothing you can do that hasn't been done, that hasn't been tried. He'll catch you; Death will catch you.” Thomas barks, looking for Lucius for backup, but it doesn't come.
“But he won't. He's not here. And I've made sure of that …”
“What are you talking about?” Thomas utters, his face pinching.
Lucius's eyes snap to my face, his mouth twisted angrily.
“I thought the ravens just stopped coming? That you couldn't help …”
I swallow hard, the solid lump in my front making it almost impossible. Two pairs of eyes burn into me. I hadn't told either of my friends the entire truth. Neither knew I'd commanded the birds to stop their tirade against me. As far as they were aware, the ravens had simply stopped coming. I didn't know how to tell the truth because I didn't know how to explain it. How did I have the power to command Death's ravens?
“They stopped coming because I refused to help.” I shrug casually, keen for the conversation to get back to Millie. To find a solution that could melt the ice that had formed across my spine. “Judge all you like, but I had no intention of giving up Millie before I absolutely needed to, just to help him. He isn't worth it.”
“I can't believe you did that. All this chaos, all this fear? And you could stop it all? Do you even know what's happened to him?”
“No, and I don't think he does either.”
I look up and see Lucius's eyes turn wide. Thomas has lost all colour, his face more serious than I think I've ever seen him.
“What are you saying, Jax?”
“I'm saying I'm going to stop it. I'm going to save her. By the time Death returns …”
“If he returns …”
“ When …” I hiss. “There's no reason he'll find out. No reason at all.” I sit up straighter, finding strength in my words, even if I don't entirely believe them. It gives Millie a chance, and for that, I do anything. Even lie to myself.
“That's one hell of a risk. Assuming you even find a way to pull it off?” Thomas is pacing now, his long legs making short work of the gap hallway. Lucius is back on the file, his jaw clenched.
“Which you won't.”
“There might be a way.”
Thomas and I stare at Lucius. He looks up, pained, torn between revealing this truth and the safety of keeping quiet. He runs his hand over his face. His eyes shut tight when he utters one single name.
“Victor.”
I pull myself up, glancing at Thomas as we both move closer to him. Lucius backs up as if he regrets speaking.
“Who is Victor? And how can he help me?” I growl, moving towards my friend like a predator on the hunt. His back slams against the bookcase, and he hits it with a thud. “Lucius, who is Victor?”
Glaring at me, he pulls a sheet of paper from the pile. The clumsy typing is smudged, but seeing Millie's name again makes my chest tighten.
“Victor is the Ghoul who typed this. He's the one who recorded Millie's death. I can tell by the smudges, see?” He points to a couple of ink blemishes on the page. “Victor's typewriter always smudges on the 'E's and 'A's and leaves a little ghost ink when he hits the space bar.”
Thomas laughs, and I shoot him a dirty look. He just shrugs.
“What? I didn't know the Ghouls had names.”
“You can tell the Ghouls apart by their typing?”
Lucius nods rapidly, stuffing the page back into the file.
“And how can that help me?”
“The Ghouls don't just type up the death; they record the alternatives the Fates considered, too. Hypothetically, if Victor—and it would have to be Victor—were to retype the death and swap Millie with an alternative …”
Thomas's body stiffens, suddenly serious.
“But then someone would have to die instead of Millie. You would have to pick another person from those alternatives. Could you live with that? Could you live with taking a life that wasn't meant to die yet? Could you really do that?” Thomas's voice is hoarse, his eyes dark and penetrating as he stares into me.
Lucius looks anxious. He's leaning against the bookcase like he might topple over without its support.
My throat turns dry, and suddenly, the room is spinning, taking me with it. I turn away, letting their words wash over me. There might be a way. A way to save her. But I would have to reap someone else, take someone else's life. For the first time, I would be truly killing someone.
His eyes fix on me hard, and I exhale. The thought makes my skin itch and causes nausea to bubble in my belly, but then I think of Millie—of her smile, of the way she looks at me. Doing this is wrong, but doing nothing is not an option.
“Yes. For her, I could do it.”
Thomas swallows, and I notice how pale he is. There's a faint shimmer across his brow. His eyes are too round and too bright.
“Then we'll help you. We'll get this, this …”
“Victor.”
“We'll find a way to get Victor to change the plan. To pick the alternative.”
“I can't ask you both to do that.” Shaking my head, I put a hand on each of their shoulders, clutching hard. “The risk … the risk is too great. We both know what the punishment is …” I close my eyes, trying to push away the images, smells, and sounds I know would be my cage. Death's infinite prison of remembrance.
“You would do the same for us,” Thomas says, his voice sure as he stares at me, his jaw set. I have so many things to say, but my throat feels thick, and suddenly, I'm speechless. In the end, all I can say is …
“Thank you.”
Thomas looks to Lucius, whose dark skin has been stripped of warmth. He puts up his hands, laughing wildly as Thomas steps closer.
“No. Hell, no.”
“Mate, it was your idea …”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Jackson needs you. We both do.”
“What you both need is your head’s examining …”
“That's my job,” Thomas says with a quirk to his lips. “Our heads are just fine. That's official.”
Lucius rolls his eyes and glares. I step forward slowly. I don't want either of my friends to risk their lives or their freedom for me, but at the same time, I can't do it without their help.
“Lucius … I need you.”
“Nope.” He barges past me, walking down the hall. “And I am helping you. I'm telling you to leave this. Trust me, that's the greatest help I can give.”
I move closer. Lucius is hovering in front of some files, straightening them as if he finds the familiar action soothing.
“You didn't have to tell me. You didn't have to tell me about Victor. But you did because you want to help me. You want to help Millie.”
“I like her, I do, but … this is against everything we believe in, everything we work for.”
Lucius runs his hands over his swollen nose as he closes his eyes. He walks away from the bookcase and leans against a pillar as he peers up to the ceiling, searching for answers in the black velvet sky visible through the glass above us.
“I'm not asking you to do anything. Just help me come up with a plan. You know how the Ghouls and the Fates work better than anyone. I mean … who else could tell the difference between the Ghouls by their typing?” I chuckle, and he glares at me. “Just help me with this, and I'll do everything else. No one will need to know.”
Lucius growls, which morphs and suddenly becomes a yell into the midnight sky behind the glass ceiling. He throws his arms wide as his eyes shut tight. Finally, he exhales deeply and then opens his eyes to stare at me.
“I know I'm going to regret this, but of course, I'll help. I'm not letting you do this alone. And definitely not with just him.”
Thomas grins and puts a playful hand to his chest, mouthing 'me?' Lucius snorts in response.
“Tell me she's worth it. Tell me the way you feel about her is worth it?” Lucius demands, his eyes grave.
Thomas moves forward, his eyes asking the same question.
“She's worth everything.”
He sighs. “We need one hell of a plan.”
“I have a few ideas,” I mumble.
“Of course you do.”
“You won't like them.”
“Of course not.” Lucius rolls his eyes, but his lips twitch as he fights a smile.
An awkward silence falls between the three of us. I'm at a loss for what to say. Lucius and Thomas are saving me in more ways than I can explain, and I don't have the language to explain my gratitude to them.
“Guys, I …”
“No. Don't do that. I'm pissed with you enough already. My nose is killing me.”
I flinch. Guilt has me scratching the back of my neck.
“Yeah … sorry about that.”
“If he goes to hug me, I'm quitting,” Thomas snorts.
“How much am I going to hate this plan?” Lucius turns to me, the colour returning to his face.
“You're going to hate it. Like, really hate it.”
He growls at me and then slaps my back painfully hard.
“Come on, let's save your girl.”