Chapter 50 #3
My blood drips between us. Rain washes it over the stone. “You wanted her pliant.” I tighten my grip. “Dependent.” Her eyes blaze. “You wanted her broken enough to cling to you.”
“Because she needed me!”
“There she is.” My voice sharpens. “You had her drugged.”
“Yes!”
“You worked with Vane.”
“Yes!”
“You let his son touch her.”
Her expression twists. “He was harmless!”
“You made her believe she belonged to him.”
“Yes!” The word tears out of her. “I needed you gone from her head! I needed her terrified enough to stay where I put her!”
My pulse roars. “And tonight?” Her chest heaves. “I asked what the fuck was supposed to happen tonight.”
She laughs, completely cracked. “I was going to sell her to Vane. He has taken a liking to her. He and his wife, they were going to use her. If she refused, I would’ve had her drugged again!”
Thunder splits the sky.
“Again?”
“Yes!” Her eyes burn.
“Drug her again,” I repeat. Every muscle in my body locks.
“She was already remembering too much.”
The tracker screams louder. Right there. So close.
“I had another passport ready.” Her voice breaks. “Another name.” My stomach turns. “A flight that would’ve taken her away from you, you monster.” A smile stretches across her mouth. “By morning she would’ve forgotten you again.”
“That’s enough,” I say softly as my free hand slips to the dagger hidden at my belt; she doesn’t even see.
My fingers close around the hilt as the steel flashes.
Her eyes widen as I seize her other wrist. Force the dagger into her hand.
Clamp my grip over hers. And lean in until my mouth brushes her ear.
“Meet your maker.” I drive her hand forward and plunge the blade straight into my side. Hot pain explodes as my blood spills over both our hands.
And right on cue, a scream tears through the alley. “Zagreus!”
The sound of her voice nearly brings me to my knees.
Hannah’s head snaps toward her, and mine follows. And there she is. Standing at the mouth of the alley. Rain-soaked.
Frozen. Dark eyes, huge.
One hand over her mouth as she looks from the knife to Hannah’s bloody hand, then to me.
And something changes. Something violent.
Something only both of us know. Like shattered glass finally clicking back into place.
Her face drains of any colour. What resides there is something I’d dreamt for many years now.
Something so deep, I never thought I’d see it before we died.
If my blood would’ve brought back my wife to me, I would’ve plunged the knife into my chest way before and watched those beautiful eyes shine with recognition.
Horror. Memory. Everything. All at once.
I see years of buried nightmares tear themselves free behind her eyes.
The blood.
The pills.
The pain.
The screaming.
My name on her lips.
The fire.
Our child.
Selene’s entire body shakes before she spots the gun I dropped at the mouth of the alley when Hannah shot me. My firecracker moves before Hannah can breathe. Before I can stop her. She grabs my Beretta with trembling fingers, raises it, and points it straight at her Mother in a single breath.
Hannah’s expression collapses. And I’d trade souls to watch it all happen again.
“Stina—” The first shot cracks through the storm as Hannah jerks. Second shot, her back slams against brick. Third, brings her to her knees, as now both of us face each other.
I smile through the blood, and love for my wife twists my face in more agony, even though this stab barely does me any harm.
Selene drops the gun as it clatters across the stone.
Her whole body shakes as she looks at me, at the blood soaking my shirt, at the knife.
Then she runs straight into me. Hands trembling against my face.
Crying so hard that she can barely breathe.
Warm despite the rain.
“Zagreus—”
My name breaks apart in her mouth. I smile. Or maybe grimace. Hard to tell with blood in my teeth and pain trying to drag me under.
But God, the sight of her. The feel of her. The sound of her crying for me. It wrecks me more beautifully than any blade ever could. Her fingers shake against my jaw.
“You idiot,” she sobs. “You stupid—fucking—”
“I know.”
Her forehead crashes against mine.
She’s crying so hard she can barely breathe.
And I feel every tremor. For years I imagined this.
Her running to me. Choosing me. And for the first time in my miserable, violent life, I let everything else go.
The darkness can have all of it.
I’ll survive it. I always do. Because she’s here. In my arms.
Alive!
My wife’s tears mix with rain and blood while she grips me like letting go might kill us both. And maybe it would.
Maybe there was never a version of this story where I made it out untouched. Maybe loving Selene was always meant to ruin me. Maybe she was always destined to become my favorite weakness.
My holiest sin.
My sweetest punishment.
My eternal claim.
I slide one bloodied hand to the back of her neck, hold her there, breathing her in. Storm and jasmine and gunpowder.
Mine. Always.
And after however many years it had been, I let the storm take everything else but her, as I let the darkness play little games with me, because if she’s in my arms, I can be on my knees forever.