Page 156 of Stutter

Not once.

Not even twice.

I betrayed her every time I had a chance to tell her to run away. To create another life. A new life. That I would find her wherever she went and join her later when we were safe.

I betrayed her every time I chose to preserve myself.

Three different pairs of footsteps fill the room. I should’ve known she wouldn’t come alone.

“Little Bird,” Damon says from the corner of the threshold. “Let us take care of this.”

She sobs in my embrace, a string of saliva connecting from one lip to the other, they curl back, and she lets out one lastsob, her face going to the crook of my neck. “I w-would have… run away with you. Gone…anywhere… with you. That was always… my dream. Me and you… And you… t-took it away.”

My eyes widen as my mind replays every single fucked up deed I’ve done for the past five years leading from to this moment to the day we met like a fucked backwards reel, and I scream when Maverick hauls her to him, my vision blurred from tears and Damon and Jonas lift me from where I was laying with her perfect weight on me. “No! No wait! Please! I can share her! I just want her happy! I’ll share her!” I try to reason.

“Raven!”

But Jonas and Damon crowd me and she’s out of my line of sight.

There’s no goodbye.

________

I’m still alive but barely breathing as the wheels of whatever vehicle we’re in roll beneath me. I’m in the trunk, too weak to scream for help. We come to a lurching stop and then three doors open and slam shut. It’s freezing, but the cold wind feels good on my open wounds.

I’m too tired, to hurt to even groan when they lift me.

“Here?” One of them asks.

“Yeah. This soil is still fresh.” That’s Jonas.

“It'll be easier to dig up and just bury him there. Nobody will look in a cemetery.” Maverick replies. He would know wouldn’t he?

It takes a few hours for them to finish digging and I’m shivering, hypothermia settling in by the time I’m dropped into a grave landing hard on a casket and soon, soil is being thrown over me.

Fitting, isn’t it? That I’m being buried alive.

Almost as cruel as leaving someone in a locker to die…

Over time, the moist dirt is… nice… warm. A blanket shielding me from the bitter cold. I’m sure the last of the night sky is turning pink as I take my last breath full of soil.

I was born with weak lungs, after all.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Raven.

Three weeks later

It only took two weeks for us to move everything into our new home in Brooklyn Heights and set everything up the way we wanted, only taking a break to fly back to England for Sabrina’s rather impromptu engagement party in Kensington. I was grateful it was small and not overly crowded like Sofia’s holiday party. Just a small get-together of their closest friends and family.

It was still a bit awkward, but Jonas was by my side the entire time, interpreting for me.

My audition for Julliard went perfectly and all I have to do now is wait for my acceptance letter.

Maverick starts at Columbia in the fall, having resigned but still teaching via Zoom and Jonas is finishing up his last semester at RMU via online courses since he no longer has football practice to go to. He is waiting for the NFL draft to call his name come April, but we have it on good authority he’ll be staying here in New York with us as his terms were non-negotiable.Damon now sees patients in the comfort of his office downtown and is home when he’s not.

It’s been a smooth transition. Being away from all of… well,thathas been a real breath of fresh air.

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