Chapter 32
All the breath in my lungs leaves me. Delia springs to her feet, jubilant.
“Wakey, wakey!” she singsongs, kicking Hayden hard in the stomach. Hayden jerks with a groan. He blinks his eyes slowly open, his gaze hazy, rolling about the room. When they land on me, he freezes.
“Rose?” he slurs.
“Hayden,” I gasp, relieved at the sound of his voice, even if it’s thick and sluggish. The panic in my voice has his gaze sharpening.
“Are you hurt? Why do I feel so…” Hayden tries to get up, wincing when the handcuffs dig into his wounds. He frowns, confused, and when he looks down at the cuffs, his confusion only grows. “What’s happening?” he grunts, shaking his head.
“I mean, I get it, Rose. He’s kinda cute.” Delia tsks down at Hayden. “Not too bright, though.”
“Dee?” Hayden looks up at Delia, and he stiffens.
The most heartbreaking cycle of emotions ripple across his face.
Betrayal. Agony. And unmitigated wrath. “You’re fucking with me.
” He struggles against the handcuffs. The metal links groan, but they don’t break.
He’s too weak from the holy water. “You’re not serious right now. This is a sick joke.”
Delia drops slowly to a squat, dark mirth twitching on her face as she grabs Hayden’s chin and pulls his face close. Steam rises where the holy water touches her, but she barely flinches. I don’t want to know how many humans she’s drained to get this powerful.
“I assure you, Hayden,” she says, cold and silky. “This is the most serious you’ve ever seen me. You took away Nico, and, well”—Delia’s eyes slide over to me—“an eye for an eye and all that.”
“I’ll kill you.” Hayden breathes raggedly as he fights his handcuffs. His fangs flare, and the metal edges of the cuffs dig deeper into his wrists until I see a white flash of bone. “I’ll fucking kill you, Delia. I swear on all of Rose’s graves, I—”
Delia throws her head back and laughs. Outside the church, I hear the snowstorm gather into a blizzard, the wind shockingly loud.
“If you kill me,” Delia says simply, “all of Rose’s reincarnations end. Her fate is tied to mine. Kill me, and you kill her too—forever.”
Hayden goes still, his face clouding, horror dawning. His eyes snap to me, wide with terror. “No,” he rasps. “Delia, no. Please.”
“Ah, begging.” Delia’s eyes fall shut, savoring. “Who knew you did it so well?” She squints an eye open at me. “You ever get him to beg?”
Having one of Delia’s eyes on me jolts me back to life. I fling the knife across the stone floor, scrabbling back from Delia, awkward and one-handed. She faux pouts, tutting, like I’m a naughty child who’s just shoved away her vegetables.
Delia rises to her feet, eyes steady on me, and for a moment, I’m sure she’s going to fly to the knife and bring it back to me. What she does is much, much worse.
Rosie, says her voice in my head, go pick up the knife.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my hands flying to my temples. I have to fight it. I have to. But my heartbeat’s suddenly flying. Every muscle is cramping. All I want to do, all I have ever wanted to do, is go pick up that knife.
Ooh, look at you fighting it, says the delicious voice in my head. I’m impressed. But you’ll feel way better if you just go pick it up. Come on, it’ll fix everything if you go pick up that knife.
When I blink open my eyes, I’m standing in front of Hayden, gripping the knife in my hand. Delia crinkles her nose delightedly at me. Hayden’s looking up at me, shaking his head, terrified.
I tell myself to drop the knife. I try and make my hand relax, my fingers splay. I can’t do it. My body won’t obey me.
Rose, says the voice in my head, slice open your cheek.
“Hayden,” I grit out, my hand tremulous as I bring the tip of the knife to my face. “Don’t look.”
Hayden’s eyes are huge, panicked. He gasps raggedly, writhing against his cuffs so hard, I hear a sickening snap that is certainly either tendon or bone.
“Please, Delia,” he whimpers. I’ve never heard his voice sound so desperate. So broken. “Please, I swear to god, I’ll do anything. You can do whatever you want to me, but please, no, not her—” His pleas break off into a scream when I sink the knife into my cheek.
Every cell in my body, every atom of my existence is raging like a bucking bull to unseat Delia’s control on my mind. My nails dig into my palm so hard I’m breaking skin. I can feel the warm wet of blood filling my hand, filling my mouth from how hard I’m biting my tongue.
But it’s not enough.
In a painstaking, halting drag, while Hayden watches and screams, I slice open my own cheek.
“Rose,” Hayden sobs. “Rose, I’m so sorry.”
“Aw, you hear that? He’s sorry.” Delia sidles up next me, brushing my hair tenderly out of the sticky heat of my blood.
I can’t talk. Can’t move. The knife’s shaking where it’s still buried in my jaw, the pain terrible, exquisite, but somehow, not as bloodcurdling as Hayden’s broken pleas to Delia.
Hayden pushes himself up to his knees, blood pooling on the stone from his ankles and wrists, his eyes burning.
“Come on,” he grits out through his fangs. “Name it. It’s yours. What do you want, Delia?”
Delia stares at him, a venomous glee bleeding into her features.
“Excellent question,” she murmurs. “What do I want? I thought it was to end this. Tonight. Now. Be done with it. But this?” Her dark eyes flick between Hayden and me.
“This is delicious. Gourmet. I could feast on this for years, Hayden, and still be hungry. So I’m thinking…
let’s see how long we can keep this sick little trio going, shall we?
Maybe I’ll have her cut off her fingers, one knuckle at a time—what do you think, Rose?
Maybe I’ll reattach them. Have you slice them off, Hayden.
Maybe I’ll let you heal over and over until your face is unrecognizable, until you have no arms or legs or ears or nose or lips. Yes, that’s what I want.”
“You should know something, Delia.” Hayden’s voice is cold. The pleading is gone. “Nico? Yeah. He died like a little bitch.” Hayden’s fangs are bared, all trace of terror gone: a change in tactic. A risky one.
Delia freezes. Her face falls blank, her lips going tight and white. “I know what you’re trying to do. I’d be careful if I were you, Caldwell,” she says, dangerously soft.
My cheek throbs as I look at Hayden in horror. Please, no, I think. Please don’t do this.
“You know I barely had to try?” Hayden grimaces, staggering to his feet and wiping his mouth. “It’s harder to kill a rat than it was to rip off Nico’s stupid face. My theory? He couldn’t stand you. He wanted to die. He hated you.”
All around us, lightning erupts, exploding every stained-glass window in the church. Shards scatter around us like deadly rain, and the stormy blizzard bursts in, knocking over crosses, ripping tapestries from the wall, guttering out candles.
Delia has Hayden by the throat, digging the large, sharp cross into his jugular. Her face is a monstrous mask of wrath and pain.
I know this is the part where I’m supposed to run. Hayden’s giving me the window of distraction I need, the barest, most desperate hope. But even if I could ever outrun a vampire, there’s not anything in this universe that could convince me to leave Hayden right now.
“No!” I shriek. I drop the knife, realizing Delia’s thrall is gone. “Delia.”
But she’s pressing close to Hayden’s face. Her hair whips violently around her in the fierce wind, her eyes entirely black. The angles of her face are sharper, and she looks like a different species entirely, something that thrives and hunts in the dark.
“Don’t wanna play anymore, Hayden William Caldwell? Fine.” Delia drops him to his knees. A gale of wind knocks him onto all fours. She tosses the large cross to the side with a clatter. “Just remember. You asked for this.”
Delia turns her head slowly to me. When her mouth barely crooks in a cold, gleeful smile, understanding dawns on me.
“No,” I breathe. Hayden’s head jerks up, and when he gets it, horror and regret flood his features. Delia’s eyes never leave mine.
Rose, she says sweetly in my mind. Pick up the cross.
I throw myself to the ground, fighting harder than I’ve ever fought in my life. Sweat breaks out over every inch of my body. Tears squeeze out of my eyes as I push up onto my knees. I spend an excruciating moment begging my body to slump back down, lie inert, do nothing.
“No,” I grate out. I’m sobbing, and I can hear Hayden’s voice in the background.
“It’s okay,” he’s saying, his voice shaking. “Don’t fight it, beautiful. It’s okay, Rose, it’s okay.”
Alright, go on, get up now.
“No,” I moan as I rise to my feet and stagger toward the cross. “No,” I wrench out as I pick it up off the floor. “I won’t.”
You will. Go stand in front of Hayden.
“Rose, it’s alright, don’t fight it,” Hayden says tenderly, lovingly, as I take halting, abortive steps to where he’s kneeling before the altar. “I love you. I’ll love you forever.”
Delia throws her head back and laughs. “Well. Until death do you part, at least. So, like, for five minutes?”
Every muscle in me is cramping. Fighting. My bones feel close to shattering. I can’t do it. I won’t. I can’t. I can’t.
But then I’m standing in front of Hayden, and I’m pressing the sharp tip of the cross against Hayden’s bare chest. He gives me a soft, adoring smile, his impossible, infinite eyes shining with lifetimes of our love.
“It’s okay,” he whispers. “I love you, Rose. It’s okay.”
Rose, Delia commands. Close your eyes. Stake Hayden.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
My wrist convulses. My stomach. My heart. Sweat pours down my forehead, stinging my eyes; my mouth floods with blood from biting my tongue and spit from the nauseous effort. But I don’t push the cross forward.
Stake Hayden, Rose. Come on. Delia’s voice caresses my brain, massages the lonely, aching parts within my skull, and I’m desperate to give in, sure I’ll die if I don’t.
“I love you, Rose,” says a deep velvet voice. It cuts through the cotton-candy haze of Delia’s command, and my grip on the cross loosens a little.