Page 104 of Death Game: Supernatural Battle

Saying more than that felt like an excuse.

I’m sorry but I did what I felt was right.I’m sorry, but I’m going to fight to make things right now.

I felt Kyros focus as he read the message, then listened in on his bitter response.

It was the response I’d expected, but it still hurt.

Bad.

“Here are the boxes, Miss Le Spyre,” Rosie said. “Are you certain you don’t require assistance?”

A string of my staff entered my grandmother’s suite clasping flattened cardboard boxes. They began to set them up.

I inhaled deeply and glanced around my grandmother’s room, the scent of lavender not as strong as it once was.

“No, thank you,” I answered. “But please bring up a few vases of lavender.”

She curtsied, and I grabbed my phone, plugging it into the speaker I’d carried in.

The slow swing of Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” filled the room.

As the staff finished making up boxes behind me, Rosie reappeared with the vases of lavender. They retreated from the room, leaving me alone.

I opened Grandmother’s closet, a heaviness settling on my shoulders as the soulful lyrics washed over me.

The last tangible signs of my grandmother’s personal life were in this room. It was a life that a select few ever saw. Only family, really, and Lady Treena. Even the rest of the oldies never stepped foot in her private suite. That was the kind of woman my grandmother was. Removing her things from this space felt like I was removing her from my life. The jewellery, the clothing, the smell, the décor—the way things were arranged as she’d liked them.

She’d always slept here. Her presence filled every corner. In my memories of her, she’d occupied this space and always would in my heart.

Because she was taken from me so quickly. Before I was ready. The trauma surrounding her death had locked my grief in time.

I couldn’t see the suite as anything else.

And maybe I didn’t have to yet.

Maybe I never would.

Perhaps packing up her things was the first step. Or a trial. I could see what happened after it. What I felt like doing next.

I picked up a box and approached the bathroom. It seemed like the most impersonal space. Packing up toiletries was stupid, yet I couldn’t throw them out. I sniffed her bath salts, a lump rising in my throat as I remembered baths in here with Tommy when we were seven or eight years old.

I placed the lavender salts in the box, and smelled her shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in turn before doing the same with them. Maybe one day I’d have the capacity to donate or throw things out. Today wasn’t that day.

All her cosmetics and care products went into the box, but I placed her favourite peach-coloured lipstick on the bed. Maybe I’d use that.

I pivoted in a slow circle, my socked feet sliding easily on the floor. I placed my hands on the waistband of my black hot pants, blowing my hair off my cheek, then smiled as my grandmother’s reproach ofdon’t let your haircover your facerang in my ears. I obediently flipped my ponytail over my shoulder, feeling the long strands settled against my back left mostly bare by the black sports bra.

I wish she was here to deliver her tongue-lashing reproaches in person.

I miss you so much.

Traipsing to the dresser, I started splitting the jewellery into pieces I’d keep and pieces I’d put in the safe. I placed her wedding rings onto thekeeppile, pushing a gold and emerald necklace to the other pile while trying not to think too hard about what I was doing.

I’d spent every night in here for months after my parents’ death, and then every other night for two years. Even into my late teens, I’d sneak in to sleep beside my beloved grandmother.

She’d never acknowledged my presence with more than a pat on my hand, but sometimes I’d wake to find her hand on my forehead, with her still fast asleep.

Never again.

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