32. VERENA GRAVENHURST
THIRTY-TWO
VERENA GRAVENHURST
I’m not sure if my heart has stopped, or if I’ve simply slipped too far into madness to hear it beating. My boots thud heavily against the mud as I sprint through the gates of the garden in search of a pair of cobalt eyes.
“Loxen!” I shout, but my voice comes out shattered as I hurtle myself deeper into the manor grounds, clutching the folder against my chest. Dense clouds darken and collide overhead, completely swallowing the sun—a clear warning of a storm quickly approaching.
I pick up my pace, taking a sharp left, darting as fast as I can through the path towards the graveyard.
It’s ironic that our sanctuary is a cemetery, because with him, amongst the dead, is the only time I’ve ever felt alive.
My breath comes in rapid, heavy pants as I step foot on the soil of my favourite place on the estate.
Thunder cracks through the sky like a whip, and I’m just about to call out for him again when I spot the back of Loxen’s dark hair, kneeling before his mother’s tombstone, placing an iris on top of it.
It takes me back to the first moments we shared here.
My heart twists so painfully watching him, I think it might split open.
For a moment, I just stare, because he’s real.
He’s right there. Breathing, moving, existing.
The article was wrong. As if feeling my presence, he stands to his full height and slowly glances in my direction.
My breath hitches. His expression is solemn, and his posture is rigid, but his eyes soften ever so slightly when they find me.
I force air into my depraved lungs, remembering the last time we spoke.
There are so many questions that have been left unanswered, so many feelings that I’ve yet to make sense of.
I stare at Loxen for a long moment before taking confident strides towards him.
“That night in the library,” I say, out of breath.
“You said you’d tell me your story another day.
I need today to be that day.” His eyes flick towards the folder, and when they meet mine, something changes in his face.
An indication of fear, like he already knows everything this folder contains and all of the questions I’m about to ask. His jaw tightens.
“Verena,” he says softly, taking a step towards me with his hand out, like he might spook me.
“Explain this,” I demand. “Explain why it says that you’re dead!” The wind picks up, whipping my hair around my face, and a drop of rain falls from the sky, landing on my cheek. I swipe it away, and Loxen takes a step towards me.
“I tried to tell you so many times, I did. I wanted to—needed you to know, but I-I just—” he stumbles over his words, his expression pleading, begging me not to turn away from him. “I couldn’t risk losing you.”
I take a step away from him, and his features become tortured, like I’d just ripped his heart clean from his chest. “Tried to tell me what, Lox?”
He points towards the folder still gripped tightly in my palm. I look down at it, then back at him.
“No.” I shake my head violently. “No. No, because I’ve been talking to you. You’ve been here. You’ve been—”
“I know.” His voice cracks, just slightly.
I laugh, but it comes out strangled, horrified.
Not laughter at all. “What do you mean, you know?” I hiss.
“Do you hear yourself? You can’t be dead, Loxen.
You can’t be! Because you’re right here.
You’re right here!” I scream, reaching to shove against his chest, to feel his warm flesh against mine, but where my hands should have connected, they went through him as if he were nothing but a cloud of smoke.
My heart drops so fast it feels like I’m falling through the seams of time.
Suddenly, as if my grief were strong enough to split the sky, rain cascades from the clouds, soft at first, then ferociously.
The sorrow in his eyes is unbearable, making me weak in the knees.
The folder slips through my hands, onto the damp earth. I hold my palms out in front of me, looking at them as if I’ve never seen them before, as if they aren’t mine at all, as if I, too, do not exist.
“One year ago, I took my last breath on these manor grounds.” He speaks over the rain as it beats down, soaking every inch of us—of him, which shouldn’t be possible if he’s merely a figment of my imagination.
My ears ring. Lightning cracks through the sky.
“I’ll explain everything, just please, please don’t shut me out. ”
I take a step back. “No,” I whisper again, but my voice is weaker.
Something in Loxen breaks then, and he rushes towards me, raising his hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, his restraint snapping, but his touch never comes.
And it dawns on me that I’ve never actually felt the warmth of his skin against mine.
All those times I thought he didn’t want to touch me as bad as I yearned for him to, all the times I thought there was something wrong with me, it wasn’t out of lack of desire, but because his body belonged to death, and mine to the living.
A tear streaks down my cheek, mixing with the rain.
“Verena.” Loxen’s voice sounds worried. I look up at him, breaking my gaze away from my hands.
I expect to see his blue eyes staring back at me, but they’re staring past me, towards the entrance of the graveyard.
I slowly turn my head towards what’s captured his attention, and dread becomes a living thing within me.
Stalking towards us through the downpour, like a murder of crows, is the society. Each member is cloaked in black, their faces covered in masks. In the front, leading the pack, is the mask of a wolf.
“Verena, run.” Loxen shakes his head, “You need to run!” he yells, panicked. He reaches for my shoulders, but it’s in vain because he’s dead and his hands whip through me like a breeze. Loxen is dead; none of this is real. Am I even real? I feel numb. My feet stay rooted to the soaked earth.
“Please. Look at me.” His voice breaks, pleading for me to be sensible. The only response from my body is the tears that continue to fall from my eyes.
“Ah, there it is,” Reed’s smug voice cuts through the air like a sharp blade, plucking the now-wet folder from the ground.
In my periphery, I see cloaked figures forming a circle around us, but it’s too late to run.
My eyes drown in Loxen’s, which are now filled with nothing but fear for my life.
He can’t keep me safe. He can’t save me. Because he doesn’t exist.
The realization of the situation I’m in sends a prickle of panic down my spine.
Icy droplets fall from the sky, sliding over my pebbled flesh.
I look in every direction, trying to find an escape before locking eyes with Reed.
I feel the fury building in my core, overpowering any fear that I feel for this man.
How could I have been so stupid to trust him so willingly?
To hand over my heart to someone with such vile intentions.
There are so many unanswered questions lingering on the tip of my tongue, demanding truth.
My eyes narrow into slits, and I pay no mind to the masked members tightening their circle around us.
“Why is it so important to you?” I shout over the fierce rumbling in the sky. “What do you know about my parents’ deaths? About Loxen Gray?”
His stance is solid. A cruel grin stretching wide across his face. He holds up his hand, giving the folder a wave.
“Oh, this? It’s none of your concern, Gravenhurst. I’m just happy it’s no longer in the wrong hands.”
“None of my concern? How dare you! I trusted you!” I take a step forward, my anger taking control of my movements, my mind not thinking rationally.
He clicks his tongue and tucks the folder in the pocket beneath his robe.
He laughs, and the sound of it is like poison being tossed in the air between us.
“Well, that was rather foolish of you, wasn’t it?” His tone is malicious—bored almost. “The thing about power is it demands to be claimed, Gravenhurst. So here I am, claiming what’s mine once and for all.” He repeats the words he once spoke to me. I grit my teeth and take a step forward.
“Verena, don’t! You have no idea what he is capable of!” Loxen pleads at my side. He tries to grasp my hand over and over, but it’s entirely impossible.
“I’ll be okay,” I whisper so only he can hear me.
Reed’s head tilts to the side, and his eyes narrow. “Who are you talking to?”
“No one.” My words are clipped. The laughter that comes forth Reed’s lips is irritating to any creature with ears.
“You’re just as batshit crazy as your old man, you know that?
Your mother was just a means to an end. A mere casualty for the greater good of the society,” he implies, like her death was nothing more than a minor inconvenience, and it’s taking every ounce of strength I have left not to strangle the life out of this bastard myself.
Nausea overwhelms me at the vile man that stands before me, smiling like he enjoys the pain and torment he’s put me through. How could I have been so blind to the evil that lurks beneath the surface of his flesh?
“Loxen Gray, on the other hand, should have never existed in the first place. If his whore of a mother hadn’t opened her legs to any man with deep pockets, I wouldn’t have had to get rid of him to take back the trust that was always rightfully mine.”
Horror flickers across my face as it all comes crashing down in my mind.
Loxen’s mother? What’s rightfully his? Adrenaline pumps through my blood at his comment.
I take two long strides towards him, my hand balled into a fist. I lift my arm, prepared to swing at him, when I notice the other members of the society have completely closed in on me.
I turn back to Reed as he lifts his mask away from his face and smirks.
I’m about to ask him what the hell is so amusing, but my words fail me.
Heat bursts through my chest. I peer down to where Reed has sunk a dagger.
Blood seeps through my blouse like ink, and when I look into Reed’s eyes, I no longer recognize the human I once had feelings for.
For what looks back at me is nothing but a monster, piercing a blade through the part of me he claimed he wanted to protect: my heart.
A body collides into mine with such intense impact the wind is completely knocked from my lungs, sending my body flying to the ground.
I can feel myself drifting in and out of consciousness as the dagger drains the life from within me.
My head lolls to the side, my vision blurs, and I can faintly make out the letters engraved into a slightly hidden tombstone covered by a blanket of black irises—Loxen Gray, beloved son & friend.
A single tear slides down the side of my cheek, grieving for the man I thought I knew, the man I wanted to hate, and the man I now realize I truly, deeply love.
Loxen is shouting my name, screaming with all of his might, driving his fists into the ground, pleading for me to fight–for me to live.
His presence is flickering before me, in and out of existence.
I try to hold on, but the loss of blood mixed with the overwhelming hurricane of emotions is draining my very soul from my body.
I don’t know how much longer I can stay tethered to these grounds under a storm so brutal, but I hold out as long as I can, for Loxen.
For Mauve, for Archie. A tear breaks loose.
Droplets of rain continue to cover my face, but I can no longer feel the cold stings as they fall upon my flesh.
I look for that handsome face I’ve come to yearn for, but when I cannot see him, I close my eyes for a final moment of peace, where everything around me fades into silence, and the world around me is no more.