14. Chapter Fourteen Point of No Return
Chapter Fourteen: Point of No Return
Tess
The morning of the battle, I lingered in bed for as long as I could bear, the heavy blankets a comforting cocoon against the strain of impending conflict. The soft morning light seeped through the curtains, blanketing the room in a delicate luminescence. Eventually, the allure of caffeine grew too strong to resist, pulling me from the warm embrace of my bed.
I shuffled into the kitchen, padding over the cool floor tiles. The smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the air, joining with the faint aroma of toast and butter from Addie’s breakfast. She peered up from her phone, curiosity and concern clear to see as she put her cup down.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Hey.” I started up a new pot of coffee, the familiar clatter of kitchen noises breaking the heavy silence that suffused the room. The coffee maker gurgled and hissed, each sound amplified in the quiet kitchen. As I waited for the coffee to brew, I could feel Addie’s eyes on me, a silent pressure that made my heart race slightly.
When I finally sat down, the warm mug cradled in my hands, she was still peering at me. Her gaze was steady, unwavering, her eyes reflecting the morning light with a soft, almost ethereal glow.
I sighed deeply, the magnitude and pressure of the day ahead settling heavily on my shoulders. Addie always knew when I had something on my mind. Her intuition always cut through the fa?ade of normalcy I tried to maintain.
She reached out and placed a hand on mine, her touch warm and reassuring. “Talk to me,” she said gently, her voice a soothing balm to my frazzled nerves. The warmth of the mug seeped into my hands, a comforting contrast to the cold knot of anxiety in my chest.
I searched Addie’s eyes, finding strength in her steady, unwavering gaze. “I’m going to join Devil’s Delirium,” I admitted.
She squeezed my hand tightly in a barely-restrained panic. “You’re what?”
Pulling away, I pressed my lips together and wrung my hands together. “I have to, Addie. Ivan is competing, and I can’t let him win.”
She leaned forward, voice quivering. “He won’t, Tess. You can’t. You won’t come out of there. It’s a fight to the death.”
“I know. But I— He’s been getting really bad. And I had a vision.”
“Of him?”
“Of me, throwing a match on him in an abandoned house. We exploded.”
“Tess, no…” Her eyes clouded up, shimmering with unshed tears before they began streaming down her cheeks. She seized my hands again, her grip tight and desperate, her skin warm and slightly damp from her tears. “You can’t. ”
I frowned, the salty taste of tears on my lips combined with the bitterness in my heart. “I have to, Ad. I don’t like it either.”
She pulled away and rose to her feet abruptly, the harsh, jarring screech of the chair scraping against the floor piercing my ears. The sound seemed to echo in the small room, amplifying the tension and pain between us. “You don’t have to, Tess. It’s not your responsibility to sacrifice yourself!” Her voice was angry and desperate, each word a plea for me to reconsider.
Addie stood there with her red, tear-streaked face, pleading. The faint light of the room smeared shadows across her face, highlighting the intensity of her emotions. The air felt thick and heavy with the strain of our sorrow and the silent screams hanging between us.
Her chest heaved with each breath, her shoulders trembling slightly, and her fingers curled into fists, her knuckles white with the effort of holding back her emotions.
“I can’t let you do this,” she whispered, her voice breaking. She reached out again, her hands trembling as they found mine, her touch a lifeline in the storm of our emotions. “Please, Tess. There has to be another way.”
I squeezed her hands and let her touch root me in the moment. “If there was another way, I’d jump for it. But this is the only option left.” My voice was low, filled with a resolve that I hoped would give her some semblance of comfort, even as my heart ached.
I couldn’t help but feel responsible. I’d traced the lines of the tattoo and enchanted the ink that had embedded this sinister side of him even further, and the guilt weighed heavily on my shoulders.
He’d turned his torment upon mostly me in the beginning, but with the way it was escalating, it was nothing compared to the havoc he’d wreak on everyone else if I didn’t stop him. They didn’t deserve it. Even though I could have never guessed it would come to this, I was the one who’d signed up for a lifetime of Ivan’s torture.
I wiped my cheek with the back of my sleeve, gazing back at my best friend. Addie had always encouraged me to take self-care more seriously, something I didn’t know how to do. “He’s too dangerous. I can’t let him win.”
She groaned and started to pace the kitchen. “No one is going to let him win in there, Tess.”
The coffee pot had stopped, so I got up to make my cup. Pulling the milk out of the fridge, I explained, “No one knows the stakes as well as I do. I can’t leave it to chance.”
The room seemed to close in around us, the walls pressing in with the intensity of our emotions. The faint hum of the refrigerator in the background was the only sound breaking the thick silence, a mundane reminder of the world outside our painful bubble.
Addie snatched a knife out of the drawer and a banana from the fruit bowl. “It’s a battle to the death. Everyone will be motivated.” She laid the banana on a cutting board and started slicing it into little disks, peel and all.
Stirring my coffee, I watched her perform her usual stress-relieving exercise. “But this is even bigger.” She didn’t acknowledge what I said or stop chopping that poor banana. Throwing my spoon in the sink, I continued, “You might fight for your life in there, but what if you knew your whole family might be killed if you don’t win. You’d fight even harder, wouldn’t you? If he wins, it’s over for all of us, and I’m the only one who understands that, so I have to stop him.”
She blew out a quick breath and whipped her head around to see me. “Maybe you’re wrong, though,” she said, waving the knife in the air. “How are you going to go up against all those psychopaths? ”
I blinked at her as if to point out how insane she appeared right now, and she huffed at me again and went right back to mutilating that banana.
I sat down and took a sip of my coffee with shaky hands, barely managing not to spill it all over myself and the table. “I’ll do what I have to.” But my voice was small and unconvincing, even to me.
Having finished, I watched to see if she was going to nab a second piece of fruit, but she slammed the knife on the cutting board. “Damn it, Tess. This isn’t up to you.” Hands on the counter, she kept her back to me, watching out the window where the sun shone as if it was going to be a beautiful, optimistic day. How the universe loves to lie to us like that.
I wanted her to be right. What I’d have given to be able to walk away from everything and live a normal life. But I’d seen long ago that that was never my path. “It is up to me, though. I think it is.”
She turned around and leaned against the counter, her face bright red and shiny from sobbing so much. Her hands curled into fight fists at her side as she shook her head, not wanting to approve of my plan for even a second. “I hate this, but I’m calling out of work tonight and going with you.”
I gaped at her in shock. She couldn’t come into the competition with me. I couldn’t focus on Ivan if I was worried about her. “You’re not entering.”
She let out a humorless laugh. “What if I am?”
My heart stopped at the mere suggestion she might be in there with me. “No, you can’t. Just let me do this, Addie. Please...” I held my breath as I waited for her answer. If she thought she was going to enter with me, I was going to have to get sneaky.
Her head fell forward as a wave of uncontrollable sobbing erupted out of her. My heart squished open like a trampled frog, and I scrambled up, threw my arms around her and squeezed. We cried together for a long while, a last testament to our friendship.
When we finally caught our breath and I stepped back, she met my eye with sternness and explained. “I’m not entering because I’m not suicidal. But I’m really pissed at you.” She pushed my shoulder noncommittally.
“I love you too, Ad.”
The silence that followed was filled with the unspoken understanding that whatever I faced in life, she was behind me. I felt a small measure of calm settle over me, buoyed by Addie’s unwavering support. I’d never felt that from anyone before. The morning light grew brighter, as if a hopeful glow for the day ahead.
But I wasn’t that naive.