CHAPTER 48 ELODIE #2
“Why leave me, Lewis? I can’t do this shit without you!
” I scream, the force scratching at my throat like glass.
“This is all your fault!” The agony rips through me, becoming a living thing that begins shredding through my chest. “You left me and now look at me! Look what I’ve become!
” Mud goes flying as I bash my fists into it, splattering my face.
“You’re a bastard!” Racking sobs hack my throat, talons rake at my heart. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”
I fall forward, my weight too much to hold up any longer.
My forehead lands on my forearms, fingers dig deep into the sodden grass, burrowing into the dirt.
Rain pummels my back as I bow over the ground covering my brother’s grave.
My devastated wails being carried off by the relentless wind as my chest cleaves in two.
“Caden was right,” I say, barely more than a whisper. “I don’t know who I am without you.” My body rolls to the side and I curl my legs up to my chest. “I am empty.” I sniffle. “I am dead.”
Maybe it’s the exhaustion, maybe it’s psychosis, but I hear him.
“El?”
My breath disappears. “Lew?”
“El!”
My eyes pop open. I roll onto my hands and knees. “Lew, what the fuck?!” I bang my fists on the ground. “Can you hear me?”
“El!”
Panic sets hard and heavy in my chest. Without thinking, I grab the shovel. It sinks into the ground easily, like a knife through butter, thanks to the rain.
“Lewis,” my voice breaks, “you’re telling me you left me alone all this time and you weren’t even fucking dead?”
He doesn’t respond, and that makes me dig harder. “Lewis, I’m coming, hang on!”
If he’s alive I’m going to fucking kill him myself. How could he leave me for so long? How could he let me suffer without him?
Anger spills into the thrusts of my shovel, doubling the dirt dug each time.
“I swear to God, Lewis, how could you fucking leave me?”
I dig forever. When my back starts hurting, I ditch the shovel and claw into the mud like a dog digging for a bone, but the adrenaline doesn’t dim.
The closer I get, the more effort I put in.
My entire body is slick with mud and rain, and I burrow through the earth like a mole.
I bring the shovel back in when I regain strength and keep on digging.
“It was never fair. It was supposed to be me. You were supposed to be the heir, Lew, you were supposed to deal with this shit. I should have been the one to die. Not you. You didn’t deserve it.”
Fresh tears fall from my eyes, and I can’t even see what I’m doing, the torch left on the ground above me. I’m deep in now. How deep do graves go? Is it really six feet? This feels like I’m about to meet the mantle of the earth.
The adrenaline eventually fizzles out, exhaustion finally creeping back in. Especially with Lewis not saying anything to keep the motivation there. I collapse onto the mud.
Keep going, El.
I sob as I look up at the black sky, raindrops hitting my face. “I can’t. I can’t.”
You’re almost there.
“He’s fucking dead.” I tilt my head down and yell into the ground. “You’re fucking dead!”
Just keep going, El, please.
At this point, I don’t know if it’s the darkness, Lewis, or schizophrenia now.
But I keep going, because why not? This is something I’d always wanted to do anyway.
To finally tell Lewis how I feel, how fucking angry I am at him for leaving me.
Tell him how bad my life has become without him.
How much I wish I could die just to be with him again.
Here comes another fresh infestation of apoplexy.
I scream and cry and wail and swear. Hammering the shovel down into the earth, mud and stones flying everywhere, hitting my face, getting in my eyes.
I’m absolutely rabid now. Once the metal of the shovel thumps on something hard and definitely not mud, I don’t stop.
I pummel the coffin. Crying out like a warrior in a battle, I stab the shovel into the wood over and over and over.
Then it splinters.
So does my cloud of rage.
Awareness creeps back in like a rancid smell.
What the fuck have I done? My hands fly to my mouth.
I stare blankly at the lid. The coffin. My brother’s coffin.
This is his fucking place of rest. And I’ve destroyed it. I’ve just busted open his coffin.
Elodie Valor, you’ve lost your damn mind.
I lost that a long time ago. My last few screws unwound when I begged Caden to shoot me in the face.
I stare at the fractured wood, trembling, sweating, panting.
He’s right there.
My brother.
My everything.
What if I just take him?
What if I wrap whatever’s left of him and just take him with me? We’d never have to be apart again.
I reach out a shaking hand and slip my fingers through the crack. When it doesn’t budge from a soft nudge, I reach in with my other hand and pry it open, my heart in my throat. I don’t even think I’m breathing.
When I get some movement, it spurs me on. I rip the wood apart.
For a moment, everything disappears. I’m no longer kneeling on a coffin in a grave, soaking and caked in mud. I’m falling through the entire earth. On my way to Hell. Burning, shredding to pieces as acid is poured through my veins.
I’m only vaguely aware of a light that’s not my torch coming down onto me, lighting up what I’m trying to tell myself isn’t real.
I’m only vaguely aware of Caden’s voice floating through the howling wind and hammering rain and my roaring heart. I’m sure he’s saying my name, but it’s like another language. It’s too far away to grasp and I continue to fall, continue to fracture into a million pieces.
Because my brother’s coffin is empty.