Chapter 35
The night seeming even cooler than before, Ollie leaned back against Noble, trying to take comfort in his boyfriend’s warmth, as they watched the police work on exhuming Irene’s body from behind the yellow tape.
Georgie was nowhere to be seen, and while there were plenty of trees between them and the police, making it harder to see, there were now also a lot of free-standing spotlights.
Despite it being past midnight, and nearing the low forties, there was quite a crowd being held back.
When Noble had mentioned the possibility of other people attending the scene, he hadn’t thought he was serious, but Ollie had apparently underestimated the nosiness, and the speed news travels in small communities.
Hearing a soft gasp, Ollie looked over to where Irene had been, only to find her gone.
A moment later, he spotted her across the way, on the opposite side of the yellow tape barrier, floating near two older men who had younger versions of themselves by their sides.
While he knew one had to be eighty, and the other in his late seventies, he could still see their resemblance to Irene, with the same pointed noses and chins.
The two younger men with them even sported the same blond hair that Irene had in the photo at the diner.
Tears filled his eyes, quickly spilling over when he saw the heartbreak on Irene’s face, as the two men stared on with what could only be painful hope in their eyes.
Sniffling, he stuttered, “H-her brothers are h-here.” He took a shuddered breath, in an attempt to calm down as Noble kissed the top of his head, no doubt trying to comfort him. “The police must have called them.”
“Someone on the local force must know them, or someone related to them. Otherwise, I doubt they’d call without being sure, not when there is a risk of giving false hope.”
“M-maybe, or…maybe Georgie called them himself?” he sighed.
The crowd let out a collective gasp when the police finally removed Irene from the ground.
Most likely due to the fact anything was found over what could actually be seen, as it was a shroud, dirt-covered form, with nothing gruesome visible.
And as they laid her down, he wasn’t sure what confirmation they specifically found, as too many officers were blocking his view, but it was pretty dang clear, despite the distance, that they had found something, as one of the officers looked towards Irene’s family and nodded.
Tears blurred Ollie’s vision in that moment, as the two older men grabbed onto each other and started to sob loudly.
Wiping at his eyes, when he met Irene’s gaze again, he saw sadness there, but as a small smile slipped onto her face, a soft, “Thank you,” floated to his ears. And then, just like the first ghost, she slowly started to…dissipate, her form disappearing bit by bit until she was gone.
As the last inch of her disappeared, Ollie whimpered, “S-she’s gone.”
Noble had to admit, he hadn’t felt much as he watched Irene’s body be removed from the ground, or even when the two men started crying.
He didn’t know if it was because he was so used to seeing others in pain—usually being the one causing it—that he was just unaffected by it now, or if he actually was incapable of empathy for all except a select few people and situations. One of the people being Ollie.
Because he didn’t like seeing Ollie cry, or as is the case at the moment, hearing Ollie cry. It made him upset, and his brain’s reaction was to figure out how to make things better, to comfort him, or to hurt whoever had made Ollie cry.
All that being said, he wasn’t sure what he could feel for others in general anymore.
It had been a long time since he felt true sadness that wasn’t tinged with some kind of guilt in relation to his own actions.
Even in regards to Ollie, as the guilt over all that he was hiding never really went away.
Yet that guilt, at least when it came to his victims, he couldn’t say with certainty that the sadness that came with it was actually sadness for the people he had hurt.
He felt self-disgust and hatred about it.
Yet the inner ache and tears that sometimes tried to come when he thought about the innocent people he had hurt, Noble couldn’t help but wonder if it was more about some sort of pathetic self-pity rather than sadness for the victims. That the anger, sadness, and guilt was grounded in the fact he knew what he had been doing, that what he had done was wrong.
Selfish self-pity, over clinging to a desperate morality for so many years, only to finally realize it was, in fact, false.
He felt guilt and sadness over the morality, yet not pain for the horrors he had inflicted on innocents.
When he really thought about what he’d done to those people, Noble found he felt surprisingly little over the actual pain he’d inflicted on them.
Maybe a little self-disgust, but the sadness…
That sadness felt like it had more to do with knowing it was wrong, knowing he had blackened his soul beyond repair and redemption, rather than being over what he’d actually done.
And that wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t.
He should feel sad for the innocent witches he’d killed.
He knew he should. And Noble felt something, for sure.
He wasn’t a complete emotionless monster, he just wasn’t exactly clear about what he was feeling.
And when it came to strangers, it was apparent that Noble wasn’t sure what exactly he could still feel.
He supposed it didn’t help that he had learned to fake so much of what he showed the world, that sometimes even he didn’t know the real him…
Hah—no, that was a lie. The real him was a monster who enjoyed hurting others, who took thrills from the violence, even if he knew for sure that he didn’t necessarily want to hurt innocent people…anymore.
But Ollie was not him…a fact that he was happy about. Noble doubted he could stand being around someone just like him. Which explained why he was never able to ‘play nice’ with the other witch hunters.
Sighing and smiling gently, he slowly turned Ollie around, before brushing a few of the witch’s tears away, but they just kept coming. “Ready to go, Baby?”
“I-I…” Ollie briefly looked back before turning to face him again, seeming unsure.
“You’ve done all that you set out to do, haven’t you?”
The witch nodded with a sniffle.
“Then isn’t it time for us to leave?”
His poor Baby took a stuttered breath before softly and sadly stuttering, “Y-yes.”