Chapter 22
The second-worst day of my life was the day I held my sister as she died in my arms. One moment, she was sitting next to me, giggling about something funny she’d seen in one of the shows I refused to watch with her.
Then, a car slammed into the side, and I came face-to-face with Death for the first time.
I’d clutched her to my chest as blood ran down her temples and screamed, “No! You can’t have her! No!”
That was when I learned the world didn’t care what I wanted. There was no fate to grant me mercy, no God to listen to my prayers. So I changed. I became the thing that God would fear, the one that would make him listen.
And for seventeen years, my life worked well like that. I was never afraid when I walked into a warzone, never scared that I would meet Death again.
Until tonight. When the worst day of my life began.
I felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner.
Not realizing that I recognized Evangeline, not because she was the woman of my dreams, but because she was the younger sister of my greatest enemy.
She’d left school a year early to join the ballet, so while I thought that Anne-something Vallen was at school, the real Vallen daughter, Evangeline Vale, was dancing in the Company, blissfully unaware of the danger her family had brought her into.
They’d tried to distance themselves after Liza’s death, probably worrying that the accident would bring on retaliation against their youngest. It was a fucked up form of protection, though a part of me understood that. Because I was all kinds of fucked up things for my Eva.
Maybe this all would have been easier if I hadn’t understood the Vallens a little bit. If I blamed her for Liza’s death. But how could I? She was a fucking child, four years old. So maybe there was no one to bring to justice for Liza. Maybe some things truly were a matter of fate’s cruel timing.
Things like finding out my girlfriend shared the blood of the family I’d sworn to destroy.
Despite all the obstacles, for a moment, I thought that we would work it out. Julian hadn’t shot me on the spot, and Eva was finally finding the backbone I’d been pushing her to form. I naively thought that our relationship would survive the dinner, that I wouldn’t lose her.
I hadn’t realized I could lose her another way.
My arrogance had gotten in the way, the beast inside of me urging me to taunt Julian, to make him hurt, to force him to realize that I wasn’t fucking going anywhere. I smugly looked him in the eye and all but told him I fucked his baby sister.
And I knew, looking into his eyes, that Julian saw red. He let his fury control him, let that fire build deep within him.
But that was the thing: fire was scorching.
“You fucking asshole. You fucked my baby sister. You’re DEAD!” Julian had yelled. And at that moment, I didn’t doubt it.
Julian raised his gun. And the next few seconds had seemed so slow yet so fast at the same time. Like I was underwater, watching the fish swim past me while helplessly drowning beside them. I wasn’t used to such a feeling, wasn’t used to having my control wrenched from me.
I fucking hated it.
I stiffened my body and prepared for pain, trying my best to shove Evangeline out of the way. I would have died sooner than I’d risk that bullet coming anywhere near her.
But as the metal swiftly traveled through the air, I suddenly found myself being shoved out of the way. I fell onto the ground with an oomph, my body clanging against the sturdy dining room chairs. I cursed as my head hit against the ground, black dots bursting at the edge of my vision.
And when I looked up, there was Eva. My angel, my little sun. My everything.
Beginning to bleed.
It was so small that I barely noticed the little dot of red appearing at her shoulder. Then it grew, and her pink dress slowly turned red along her arm.
Eva raised her shaking fingers to the wound and pulled them back, her breath shuddering as she stared at the gore. She looked at me with wide, helpless eyes.
Then she collapsed.
I dove across the floor, my hands catching her before she hit the ground. The thud she made would haunt me for the rest of my life. I was certain I’d have nightmares about it, about the little whimper she made when her eyes turned to her wound.
“Alek,” she cried, her frail body curling into me. Tears streamed like twin waterfalls down her cheeks, and I felt my heart breaking more and more with each one.
“I’m here, baby.” I grabbed her head and placed it in my lap, stroking her soft curls and examining the wound. Thankfully, the wound was a shallow one. As long as she went to the hospital soon, she would be fine.
But that didn’t mean the sight of blood on her delicate body didn’t rip me to shreds.
If I had any questions on whether Evangeline was a part of a ploy from Julian to attack me, they were answered now. She took a bullet that surely would have hit me in the heart, saving my life, not caring if that meant losing hers.
Why? I wondered as I wiped away her tears. Why did you push me out of the way? Why did you get yourself hurt over me? Why?
“Alek, it hurts,” she whimpered.
“I know, baby. I’m going to take you to the hospital, and they’re going to make it better. Okay?”
She nodded her head, though the movement seemed to cost her greatly. “Okay.”
“I’ll be with you the whole time.”
“No, you fucking won’t be,” Julian—who I honestly had forgotten was there—growled.
With a snap of his fingers, I was yanked backward by two men who were closer in size to a tank than to a normal human being.
They held my arms behind my back and began to tie me up with a rope that rubbed my skin raw.
I fought with everything I fought them with everything I had—elbows, shoulders, teeth—but I was off balance, dizzy, and too far from her.
Way too fucking far.
“Don’t hurt him,” Eva cried weakly, her voice barely more than a breath.
She pushed herself onto her good arm, her face pale, her lips tinged blue.
Blood still welled from her shoulder, soaking through the fabric no matter how hard she pressed her fingers against it.
Soon, she fell back to the ground, her body not used to the pain of our world.
Julian went to her side and picked her up, cradling her to his body. That should have been me. How dare he try to keep me from her? She was bleeding. She needed me.
His face was cold when he looked at me, but it softened with guilt whenever his eyes darted to Eva. His eyes said so many emotions he wouldn’t dare show in front of me. The realization of what he had done. The horror as her face continued to pale. The soul-crushing shame.
“Jules… please—” Eva began.
“He’ll be fine, Evangeline.” He looked down at her and kissed her forehead. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said, straining against the men holding me until the cords burned my skin raw.
“No, you’re not. You’ll never see her again.” He looked down at Eva and said with a hard voice, “This ends tonight.”
“No,” Eva whispered, arms straining to reach me. “No, Jules, you can’t. This is my fault. I stepped in front of him. Please let him come, I—”
“I said no, Evangeline.”
“But… But I love him.” Her voice broke, and something in my chest broke with it.
The men tried to drag me back, but I fought with everything I had. The beast of darkness roared inside of me. They could not keep the Reaper contained for long. “Eva! Eva, look at me!”
Her eyes found mine instantly. Even like this—hurt, shaking, terrified—she still listened to me. Still trusted me. Good girl.
“You’re mine. Do you remember what I told you in your bathroom?”
You are mine. Nothing can keep you from me.
Eva nodded, and I forced the next words past the invisible iron fist wrapped around my throat. The one made entirely of fear. “I meant it,” I said.
“Okay,” she whispered, smiling like she didn’t believe a single word. That fake fucking smile of hers.
“Eva, I—”
“Get rid of him,” Jules snarled. One of the men slammed a fist into my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs. The familiar taste of blood came flooding into my mouth. I coughed some onto the precious Vallen dining room table.
“Alek,” Eva sobbed. “Alek.”
She weakly reached for me, and I tried one more time to get to her. I yanked against the ropes again, skin tearing this time. I didn’t care. I would have ripped my own arms off if it meant getting to her.
“I will fucking find you, Eva,” I vowed darkly. “That’s not a promise. That’s a threat.”
Because, as they dragged me away from her—away from the blood, away from her broken little sobs, away from the life I had almost believed I could keep—I knew one thing with clarity:
This was no longer a generational war between families.
This was a war over Evangeline.
And I would burn this world before I let it take her from me.