CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
FINCH WAS PRONOUNCED DEAD BEFORE the dawn lit the earth.
The physician and the medical examiner announced the death to Finch’s parents first, and Elliott heard a mournful cry like a foal had been struck in the woods. A low bellow resounded through the hallways as though a bison had been wounded, and James tensed.
The rest of the thespians had long fettered out, plying James with heartfelt platitudes and well wishes for several minutes earlier, until it was deemed acceptable to hail for a taxi and be rid of the stench of the townsmen.
Elliott, despairingly struck with devastation and refusal, hadn’t felt the tears on his own face when he’d heard it.
Belatedly, he thought the words had been spoken in a half dream.
A horrific sleep paralysis that stunned his lifeless body still.
He partly recovered, increment by increment, when James came apart with raw grief beside him.
“Don’t. Please.” James’s voice was a distressed whisper. “It should’ve been me. Please, don’t take him. Mesmo quando eu andar por um vale de trevas e morte, n?o temerei perigo algum, pois tu estás comigo; a tua vara e o teu cajado me protegem. Protect him.”
Elliott didn’t know what James was mumbling in his sleepless murmurs and prayers.
He was speaking in Portuguese half of the night.
For years, James had been regarded as though he had ichor coursing through his veins instead of blood, how powerful he appeared.
In that moment, despite his height and stature, his face was a young boy again. Fractured.
“E n?o nos deixes cair em tentac?o, mas livra-nos do mal, porque teu é o Reino, o poder e a glória para sempre. Amém.”
The hurt of losing his mother was still fresh after all these years. He couldn’t hear himself without hearing her. James almost never spoke Portuguese without her. That hour, though, he rumbled through every prayer of hers he knew as though it could bring Finch back.
“Porque Deus amou o mundo de tal maneira que deu o seu Filho unigênito, para que todo aquele que nele crê n?o pereca, mas tenha a vida eterna. Please let him rest with You for eternity. Please have mercy upon him.”
James’s soul was beleaguered in the throes of disbelief and tragedy. How could this have happened? How could he have let her take him from the earth?
How could James not have shielded him?
Piercing through the moil and strain of sorrow, the travail of rue, árēs spoke unto him.
árēs who urged forward Achilles in warfare.
árēs whose battlelust never wavered. He knew what needed to be done.
The ferocity of his fire dried the tears of his young son’s eyes like the hand of a father armored with a desolating sword of combat and formidable shield of comfort.
Although it was Homer’s words which birthed him in new life, it was the war drums of árēs that answered his cry of prayers.
‘Hungry as wolves that rend and bolt raw flesh,
hearts filled with battle-frenzy that never dies –
off on the cliffs, ripping apart some big antlered stag
they gorge on the kill till all their jaws drip red with blood,
then down in a pack they lope to a pooling, dark spring,
their lean sharp tongues lapping the water’s surface,
belching bloody meat, but the fury, never shaken,
builds inside their chests though their glutted bellies burst –
so wild the Myrmidon captains, Myrmidon field commanders
swarming round Achilles’ dauntless friend-in-arms.
And there in the midst Achilles stood like the god of war,
urging his charioteers and fighters bracing shields.[19]’
For a moment, James stood entirely still, then he walked over to the weeping family waiting room. Elliott could hear him take over and assist with paperwork and finalizations.
Hiccuping as he wept, Elliott was curled between the fern plants and the broken water fountain. He couldn’t remain still as Finch’s corpse was covered with a narrow white sheet.
Elliott was inconsolable at the sight of him. He slid to his knees in anguish.
As Mrs. Hudskin sobbed in her husband’s arms, James remained impassible, insensate to any emotion. He collected Finch’s belongings, and he began calling the rest of Finch’s friends to gather at the hospital with cards and condolences.
The receptionist at the JFK Hospital telephoned the coroner to retrieve the body by the end of the day. All at once, it struck Elliott anew in the weight of his soul. Finch was gone.
He was completely gone.
Elliott was crestfallen. Distraught with the earth-shattering revelation that Finch’s life ended abruptly and without cause.
He was haunted by the visions of Finch’s blood pouring out of him.
Elliott wanted to bend the strains of time and space to return to the moment before Finch drank the chalice. He wanted to never attend the banquet. Writhing inside, he regretted the agony he caused Finch and his family.
A hand was on his shoulder. “Elliott, are you alright?”
Elliott gazed up at his tousled white hair. His face blurred.
“I will be fine. Really, I promise.” Elliott teetered on the edge of his sneakers, he rose to a stand, fighting the urge to collapse once more, but he held himself upright.
He hoped if James saw that he was alright, he wouldn’t leave the state after Finch’s funeral.
Elliott needed to be the one with strength for him.
James would need him. “I will take care of everything with Finch. I will come with you.”
“No, I will ensure everything is taken care of for him, Elliott.”
I am cursed, Elliott. Rid yourself of me. Where my path is headed, you cannot follow.
James mentioned beneath his breath, “Elliott, I should’ve told you what the theater department was capable of.
When you realize it, you will never forgive me for it.
” Elliott never needed to forgive him, there was nothing James could do to make him truly hate him.
That was what he believed then. “I would forgive anything for you. I hope you can forgive me for my part in this.”
Elliott tried to dry his face with his tie, but it felt impossible to hold back the tears.
He knew James would leave and isolate himself.
He gathered himself for him. Elliott admonished himself.
Have strength for him for once, Elliott.
For once. “Please, you shouldn’t be alone by yourself. I will come with you.”
“I’ve ruined you in every way imaginable, Elliott.
Even Lucien’s death scarred you because of me.
You’re still traumatized from the car crash with Mr. Newton because I had my friends take your keys.
You had to stand there and watch Finch lose his life.
I’ve ruined you. I apologize with every atom within me. ” Forsake me.
Elliott slid his hands in his tuxedo pockets. “You never ruined me. I don’t want to be without you.” Somehow, a part of Elliott knew that James would leave him. That his words were a farewell. Half of Jame’s childhood friends were dead. “You can’t be alone out there.”
Those seventeen words made James’s eyes drift up to Elliott’s soft, damp freckles.
Freckles he’d dreamt of at night. He wanted to keep the memory of Elliott within his heart.
His golden eyes gazed upon him one final time.
James rose his eyes to Elliott’s neck, where the evidence of Lucien was gone completely.
He tried to force his eyes back down, but they trailed upward, witnessing the dimples of Elliott’s cheeks that sunk him completely.
His mismatched eyes that whenever he smiled at him, left him senselessly intoxicated.
You will only bring catastrophic pain unto him. Leave the state.
James heard his own voice in his ears. “I will always be within you. If you, too, see the same moon we are not that far away.” He kissed Elliott’s cheek good-bye. He started down the hospital steps outside. It was safest for him if they were apart.
Elliott still could not understand the sudden tragedy. “His chalice seemed fine when I drank it. I should’ve never handed him my chalice instead–”
James stopped cold on the last step. “You exchanged chalices with him? The chalice was yours?”
Professor Illaria had handed it to Elliott herself, right from the serving trays of the seniors.
His eyes shone with tears. “If I had drunk the pomegranate juice instead, I might not have had the same reaction as him.”
“The drink was meant for you then.” James paled. “He was the one who was supposed to watch you die.” James appeared sickened. “You’re certain it was your drink, Elliott?”
Elliott nodded, his eye scratched from his seventh attempt to dry himself. “Finch asked for my non-alcoholic drink because of his medication.”
“Filha da puta.” James wasn’t making any sense, attempting to constrain his mind around the horror that was planned to have happened that night in front of James and Finch.
“Degenerada.” She had failed to execute Elliott Archway the first time.
That was her second attempt at his public execution.
She plotted the murder of his best friend, twice, and she killed his other best friend in the pursuit.
All to punish James. She had not merely declared war with him.
She had demanded annihilation.