Chapter 55
GONE
Somewhere far away, a siren wails. I grab Jude by the shoulders and shake him.
His head lolls.
There’s a hole in his shirt where the tether erupted. I slide my fingers inside and tear the fabric away. Tiny black spider veins curl over his heart.
I press my ear against his chest.
But there is no sound.
And I don’t know CPR.
Why don’t I know CPR?
“Please,” I cry, coming to my knees. Turning. Searching. My mind scrambling for something, anything, to fix this.
A figure stumbles through the dark.
Twig.
He limps toward me, dragging his left leg, blood soaked through the torn knee of his jeans. His face is ashen, scratched, and bruised. His glasses are gone. But he sees me and I see him.
He’s here.
Fully here.
So am I.
Someone cries.
Someone else moans.
The sound of frightened, injured party-goers pockmarks the night.
Distant, but no longer distorted.
Somehow, we are in the same realm.
Twig stumbles. Falls. Scoops something up from the grass, then gets to his feet again.
“Is he alive?” he asks through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know,” I cry, searching for a pulse.
A flicker of life. A shred of hope. “I don’t know,” I say again, wilder this time, my fingers fumbling from Jude’s neck to his wrist. My own heart beats everywhere—in my ears, in my throat, in my skull.
If only I could rip it from my body and share it with him.
I reach for his other wrist.
The locket is still in his hand, open and empty.
With a hoarse cry, I snatch it up and hurl it at the tomb. It cracks against stone and falls as a sob tears up my throat and memories claw their way in.
Jude on his first day of school, reading Macbeth in the cafeteria, debating with me in class about witches and evil.
Listening to Stevie Knicks in his storage room.
Watching Tales from the Crypt until midnight.
Skipping rocks at the quarry. A glitter fight at the fairgrounds.
Dancing in the ballroom. His crooked grin, a rare sight to see.
But oh, when it came. He didn’t believe in monsters, but he saved me from one anyway, and then we kissed.
“Selah.” Twig drops beside me, his breathing ragged.
He opens his fist.
Something flickers on his palm.
A faint red pulse.
The ruby amulet.
It’s glowing.
Still alive.
With power over human hearts.
And I am Seraphina’s descendant.
With the ability to wield the supernatural.
My breath catches.
I pick up the ruby and place it on Jude’s chest. With tears tumbling down my cheeks, I take his hand between mine and cradle it against my heart.
“Please, Jude.”
I grapple for the right words.
Magic words.
True words.
“I love you,” I whisper.
And I will never believe that love is a bad thing. No matter how Seraphina tried to twist it, love is not a curse.
It’s a gift.
A good, life-giving gift.
My heart swells with it as tears tumble down my cheeks and I press my lips to his.
The amulet flares to life.
A red ember lifts from the stone, glowing like a tiny star. It floats in the air. Then slowly, delicately, it lands on Jude’s wound. It sinks into his skin. The ruby pulses once, and the spidery black veins fade away.
Time stops.
So does my breath.
But my mind churns.
Begs.
Please, please, please …
His finger twitches in my hand.
And his eyes flutter open. The color of changing leaves in the fall. A sob escapes—a joy-filled, euphoric sob. Half laughter, half disbelief as his cloudy gaze finds mine.
Twig slumps against a headstone.
Red and blue lights flicker in the distance.
Jude pulls my hand to his chest, where his heart beats once again. “Did it work?”
I laugh and cry and nod.
“But I’m alive?”
“Yes,” I say, showing him the ruby, which pulses no more. A special power Seraphina used to hurt hearts and break hearts and stop hearts.
Its final act was life.
“And the curse?” he asks.
“That’s gone, too.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, an exhausted smile painting his lips. Then, as though needing proof, he gently moves the collar of my shirt aside.
The mark is gone.
He exhales softly.
“Then allow me to say the words I’ve been dying to say …” His fingers curl around the back of my neck. He draws me close, his voice warm in my ear. “I love you, Selah Whitlock.”