Chapter 34
Dante
SERENITY SAT ON THE WINDOW seat in my library. The silk robe wrapped around her pale, tattooed body, and her now dried silver curls created a shining curtain around her shoulders and back. The overcast light lit up her frame from the other side of the window.
She stared at the photo frame I’d fixed and displayed on my fireplace mantle—the framed picture she never got to gift me, because I’d messed everything up before she could.
The image of us at the zoo with its vibrant, animal-littered case stood proudly now for me to look at every time I entered the library.
The day it depicted was one of the best memories of my life, and I was determined to make even more with her.
“Here you go,” I offered, holding out the cup of freshly made coffee, doctored up just the way she liked it.
She looked at me then at the cup. Slowly, she accepted it. “Thank you.”
I sat down across from her on the window seat, and while I’d also poured myself a cup, I couldn’t drink it.
I couldn’t focus on anything except the way she stared down into the drink.
The barriers she’d put in place around her soul and mind stood tall.
Yet, as we sat here, cracks began to form.
The guard faded from the lines of her face as chunks of that wall began to come down.
As the barrier came apart, she seemed to muster up the strength to speak.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Immediately, I knew she was referring to what I’d stumbled upon when I appeared in her room.
The defeat she must’ve been feeling in that moment had to have been overwhelming, something I could never even hope to understand.
Those feelings of hopelessness weren’t her fault, and anyone who said otherwise was fucking blessed that they had never felt as low as she had at that point.
“Don’t” I quickly shook my head and shifted closer on the cushion. “You have nothing to apologize for.” I closed my eyes and hung my head. “I need to apologize.”
“What I did wasn’t your fault,” she hurried to say.
“But I’m sure what I did certainly didn’t help.” I met her gaze and leaned in closer. “I’m sorry, Serenity. I’m sorry for lying to you. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you were suffering and in need of someone to talk to. Someone you trusted. I’m sorry I broke that trust.”
She closed her eyes, no doubt trying to hide how wet they were becoming, and her foot began its mindless tapping against the cushion. “Everything has just gotten out of control. I’m—I’m …” Tears finally seeped out from her tightly shut eyes.
I reached out to gently wipe them away and told her, “It’s safe. You’re safe. Talk to me if you can, baby. We can go slow. Whatever you need.”
She blew out a hard, wet breath and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do. I feel so lost and alone, Dante. I feel trapped. I’m a bother to everyone I thought loved me. My dream is—is a waste. I have nothing to offer the world. I-I am nothing.”
The confession practically tore my heart to pieces until I felt like there would be nothing left by the time she was done talking. I hated that she felt this way. I hated how much pain she was in, believing that her life was worthless. I wished she knew how valued and important she was.
An idea struck me then. Wordlessly, I called shadows to wrap around the two of us, and in an instant, I transported her to my world—Hell.
The realm of demons was different, depending on where you landed.
It wasn’t actually a physical place one could walk around, but rather, an infinite space of places you could end up, depending on what you were looking for.
We now stood in an empty space of total darkness, the two of us completely alone. Even with the pitch black lighting, I could see her clearly in the dark, her silver hair turning every which way as she searched the place I’d brought her to.
“Dante?” she shouted in panic.
Her voice echoed with a haunted quality in the desolate space, and the longer we stood here, the more despair seemed to blanket the very air we breathed.
“I’m still here,” I answered, standing a distance away.
She turned in my direction, though her human eyes couldn’t find me where I stood. “Where are we?”
“Hell.”
Her eyes widened, and her pale face looked around slowly. “Hell?”
“More specifically, my Hell.” I joined her in looking around the cold, empty, dark place.
Distant shouts from men, women, and a child screamed or shouted curses about being a monster that deserved to rot.
“It’s a look inside my head. Or my heart.
Maybe my soul. Fuck, it could be all three. The point is, this is me.”
She wrapped her arms around herself as a shiver shook her frame. A white cloud puffed out of her lips when she whimpered, “It’s cold.”
I nodded. “Mhm. Cold. Dark.” My eyes pinched in barely contained misery as I looked around the endless nothingness while the voices and shouts grew louder until they practically rang inside my skull.
Vile demon.
Obey your new God.
You’re a demon and a stain upon the world. A spawn of Hell deserves this much. You’re a monster, and no one could ever really love a monster.
I squeezed my eyes shut and continued, “It’s vastly empty. And it’s been this way for a very, very long time. No one wants to be here.” I let out a rueful chuckle. “Not even me. I hated this existence, and I hated everyone.”
Her gaze tried to find the source of my voice, and she whispered, “Dante—”
A small light appeared in the distance and caught her attention. As that finite sparkle drew closer to us, I also approached Serenity’s side. When the glow was a few yards away, Serenity gasped.
“And then you appeared,” I breathed out, a warmth gripping my chest tightly.
The light was no longer just a shapeless glimmer but an image of her made up of a thousand twinkling stars.
The closer the figure drew, the quieter the screams and chants about hating a demon like me became.
The white stars depicted her as the beautiful vision that had stolen my ability to think—the first time I saw her.
Short skirt, shoulderless top, bow pulling back part of her hair, and the sweetest hint of a smile on those perfect lips.
The starry outline image stopped right in front of us, and that whisper of a smile in the glowing memory grew.
The glittering girl reached out her hand, and I met that gesture until the tips of our fingers touched.
The image burst in a bright flash, and when that blinding light faded, the dark, cold, and miserable abyss we’d been in had changed.
Millions of stars littered the space above, around, and below us.
Purple, green, and blue light reflected around the twinkling silver lights in all shapes and sizes as though we’d been plucked out of Hell and sat right in the middle of the most spectacular galaxy known to man.
Serenity looked around while her trembling hands covered her mouth, and tears filled her eyes. “It’s so beautiful.”
I looked down at her, my grin softening. “It’s you.”
Lurking in the constellations were different depictions of Serenity as I’d seen her in various moments—her head thrown back in a laugh, her sitting with a capybara, her face bent over a book, her laid back and naked on my bed.
The room glowed with every beautiful image, spinning slowly around us with its marvel.
She seemed to spot all of the little visions of herself, because her watery eyes met mine.
“You saw this horrible place that no one else wanted,” I explained softly, turning to face her fully.
“You saw it and made it your home. You brought light into my world, and I need you to hear me when I say this.” I cupped her cheeks in my clawed hands and leaned in close to her.
“The world is so much better with you in it. My world is better with you in it.”
She sucked in a strangled breath and leaned into my touch.
“So,” I barrelled on and pressed my forehead to hers, “if you need to scream, scream. Because I’ll hear you. If you need to fall, then fall. Because I’ll catch you. And this time, I will never, ever let go, Serenity.”
Soft cries slipped out of her lips as the stars continued to dance slowly around us. Her shaking hands covered mine, and her response shot one of those stars right into my chest. “Okay.”
THUNDER RUMBLED, AND THE SOUND jolted me out of slumber.
I chastised myself with a grumble for falling asleep when I was trying to watch over Serenity.
After returning from Hell, she’d been quiet but here.
We’d fallen asleep while holding each other.
I looked next to me on the bed, and alarm rushed through me when I found her spot empty.
“Serenity?” I shouted, leaping up from the bed and looking around the dark room.
I didn’t see or sense her in here. Her trembling figure sitting with a shard of glass closing in on her life flashed across my mind.
I couldn’t catch my breath as I merged with shadows and walked through them to wherever she’d gone.
I didn’t go far, though. I appeared outside in my backyard.
Rain pelted down on me as I solidified, and I stood there, frozen and silent, watching Serenity.
She stood barefoot and in the robe I’d lent her, and her face was tipped back with eyes closed as the rain washed over her.
“S-Serenity?”
She slowly opened her eyes and looked at me. I sucked in a hard breath when I found, not silent pain in those gray eyes, but a small smile. “Dante.”
I swallowed hard and drew closer until we stood face to face. I looked around the muddy ground and the dark, weeping sky. “What are you doing out here in the rain?”
She tilted her face up and shut her eyes. “Living.”
Most people wouldn’t choose to stand in cold rain.
Most people would look at the two of us and shake their heads in disbelief.
But I stared at her and understood. Mud and grass caressed our feet.
The smell of wet earth and trees surrounded us.
The rain poured over our skin and had our clothes clinging to our bodies.
Everything about standing in the rain was a reminder that she was still alive with so much to feel, smell, and experience.
Everything about standing here in the rain with her was beautiful.
I held out my hand. “Wanna dance?”
She looked at my hand before meeting my gaze again.
The smile she wore stole every bit of air from my lungs.
Wordlessly, she took my hand. I pulled her close, holding her hand in one of mine while caressing the small of her wet back with the other.
We swayed to the tempo of the falling rain, and the more we moved, the brighter our smiles became.
I stepped back and held her arm high, twirling her around in a spray of raindrops, and her laughter joined the symphony of the rain.
I still worried about her and what she needed. I still saw the moment I could’ve lost her in the back of my head. But in that instant, I saw my star’s light reigniting. I saw the twinkle beginning to fill her eyes again, and I felt her rising higher.
Was she completely over the hurdle of her mind?
No, and she may never truly be. Depression came and went, rising and falling at inexplicable times.
That was fine. She didn’t have to be okay all of the time.
All she needed to do was be here, taking her time to wade through all that she was feeling at her own pace.
I’d hold her hand while she stumbled and tripped, just as she’d found my flailing grasp as tar pulled me under.
She’d snagged my hand and pulled me out from beneath the pile of resentment, because that was what you did for those you loved—offered a hand when the other needed help.
So I let go of my fears as she seemed to do in this moment, and together, demon and star danced in the rain.