Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
I can see that doesn’t make sense to him. That he can’t make those words go together in any way that he can accept. “What?”
“He took me there and he . . . He tried to get me to make a deal with the demons. He said . . .” I swallow at the emotion,
because he needs this straight. Deserves it told to him quickly and concisely. Sure, it’s a dagger to the heart, but if I
don’t drag it out then at least it’s not twisting in the wound. “I don’t know if he killed Amelia or pushed her to it. I know
he killed Cleo. They wouldn’t make a deal with the demons.”
“Lexi, that doesn’t make any sense.” But I can see that he’s not as sure about that as he probably should be. That even in
his rejection of what I’m telling him, he sees the little things we should have questioned.
I hope.
“He’s one of them,” I say, matter-of-factly. “He made a deal by giving them his blood freely. They can’t feed yet, but when they do, he’s going to run Midas as he pleases. That’s what
he gets out of it. And when I wouldn’t make the same deal, he—” It sticks in my throat. But I look at Jack and I give it to
him as straight as I can. “He tried to kill me.”
Then I brace for him to tell me he should have known a crazy bitch like me would make up something like this.
I wait for him to let me go. To step back and refuse to believe what I’m telling him.
I understand it. This is too big a leap for him to make.
He might think he loves me, but he’s only known me for a few weeks. He’s always had his grandfather.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” I tell Jack in a whisper. “I don’t. But he did this to me.” I point to my face. “With the same
knife he used to kill Cleo.”
I feel Logan move behind me. Like he, too, expects Jack to reject this and he’s backing me up. Ready to fight Jack if need
be.
But Jack doesn’t fight. He doesn’t even really react. He stands there, much too still.
He looks out at the dark. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
I put my hand on his arm, and only then does his gaze finally meet mine. He looks wrecked. “Why would he do that?”
My eyes fill with tears, but I blink them away. “He said he’ll get to decide who lives, who dies. Who prospers, who fails.
He’ll control it all. And he seems to think he’ll be around long enough to wait for the next harbinger, so I guess he thinks
he’ll live a long time, too.”
Jack shakes his head vaguely, but he doesn’t pull away from me. If anything, he leans in.
He clears his throat. “We have to stop him, then,” he says, but his voice is hoarse and my heart breaks.
But there are demons slurping in the shadows, and he’s right. We have to stop this.
“I think I know how.” I hold him a little tighter. “It’s us. A Bellamy and a Darling. We can undo it. End it. With the rock and our blood.”
“Isn’t that just doing a deal with the demons?” Logan asks from behind me. “Your own deal, sure. But how is it different?”
I shake my head, not wanting to look away from Jack. “No, because we have a choice. The blood doesn’t matter unless we do
it willingly.” Harrison made that clear. “So we’ll choose to reject the deal. For us and everyone after us. Because the deal
is a choice.” I look at Logan then to make sure this lands. “They want us to think they have all the power, but if that were true, why
are we the ones who have to decide to give it to them? We have the power. If we work together, we stop it.”
“You dreamed this,” Jack says, his voice gruff. “You were on top of the rock.”
We all turn to look at it. In my dream, I was standing on top and I was waiting for something.
“We need to get up there,” I say now. “We’ll go up and . . .”
I’m not sure how to do this thing I know we have to do. I’m not sure of anything.
“And say the words,” Jack says, in that same steady, gruff way, and he knows because he’d been studying my dreams for weeks.
It feels like an intimacy. It rushes through me like one, even at a time like this. “In your dream, you heard words. The same
words Virginia said to us.”
The air clogs in my lungs, but I manage to say it. “The beginning is the end.”
We gaze at each other. Jack looks certain, or at least he’s pretending he’s certain. But it feels right. Virginia’s words,
my dream. All this help we’ve been given—like the spotlight from the airport, which could very well be Virginia’s doing.
Because if the harbinger exists, that means good exists—and always has. It means that there were generations of us who didn’t want to go along with this deal. With selling
ourselves out to demons.
It also just makes sense to end as we began.
But as I turn with Jack toward the rock, Logan grabs my arm. “I’m a Darling, too. You’ve been through enough. You’ll stay right here in the light. Jack and I—”
I shake my head. “This is mine, Logan.” I look at Jack. “This is ours.”
He doesn’t even look at Logan. It’s like I’m the only light he sees. Jack nods. “This is ours.”
I know Logan wants to argue more, but I wrap my arms around him. We don’t hug. We’re not that kind of close. But I hug him
hard now. “Trust me,” I whisper.
He hugs me back, harder. “Always.”
Jack and I move toward the rock, but as we do a sickening slurp seems to echo through the night. It’s revoltingly loud.
One of the lanterns explodes, just as the clock tower begins to chime.
And something creaks in the distance.
“Midnight,” Jack says grimly. “The Feed is upon us.”
I peer into the dark pressing against the lanterns and the spotlight. And I might not have seen it before—at least not in
real life—but I know at once that the creaking is the flood wall beginning to shut.
While the first part of the clock tower’s song rings out into the dark, late night.
We have to hurry. Before the clock finishes chiming. Before the flood wall closes.
Jack’s hand clasps mine, but before we can take another step toward the rock, Harrison’s voice reaches us from the dark.
“Jack,” he cries out, sounding hurt and human and like him. “Please, Jack, let me into the light!”