Page 138 of Changeling
“It’s okay! You’re okay!” called Sasha.
“S-Stay away from me.” Nathan backed toward the corner of the room, knife brandished shakily. “Why? Why are you…d-doing this? I did what you wanted. I did everything you wanted…”
“Nathan, it’s us,” Sasha tried to say calmly, inching closer to Nathan with hands held up in seeming surrender. Jim was the same.
Nathan knew he had to be a pitiable sight with that weakly held knife, but he’d use it, damn it, he would. Somehow he’d use it.
His back hit the corner of the room.
“Playing that game?” Nathan scoffed. “I know better. You haven’t beenthemin…in so long, I…I don’t even…remember. I don’t remember…”
“Nathan,” Jim pleaded, moving ever closer with one hand outstretched. He looked so strange to Nathan, almost believable with those dark blue eyes so caring, so concerned. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like, but it’s over. You’re not in the Veil anymore. We got you out. You’re safe. With us.”
“Please believe us, Nathan,” Sasha said. “Just look at us.” He gestured to himself; to Jim. Sasha too looked so normal, so honest and how Nathan remembered him. “It’s really us. You’re safe, Nathan. Please recognize us…”
He recognized them. But it had to be a trick. Another damn trick like all the others.
“I gave you what you wanted,” Nathan said again. He was so cold. Nothing looked right. Nothing felt right. He couldn’t understand why this was happening when he had finally given in.
“Nathan, it’sus,” Sasha said more firmly, like maybe Nathan just couldn’t hear them.
“Malak took you and we’re so sorry,” Jim said. “We wish we could have gotten you out sooner, but you have to know us. Please tell me you still know us…”
“Malak…?” Nathan glared at the false images before him, knife still held firm, warning them not to get closer. “It had nothing to do with that, you know that, youknow. I didn’t…I didn’t go to the Veil.”
Jim and Sasha stopped their progression toward him, their eyes wide and disbelieving. They shared a pained look, not knowing what to say until finally Jim spoke, slow and gentle.
“Nathan, don’t you remember? Malak said killing the spriggan instead of banishing it broke the deal. That’s why we couldn’t win, why we couldn’t save you. You went to the Veil, Nathan. You’vebeenin the Veil. But you’re out now. I don’t know what Malak did to you there, but we got you out.”
It almost made sense, as if a second reality were trying to push into Nathan’s mind: memories of what Jim was saying, memories he knew weren’t fabrications, and yet…how could he remember things happening two different ways?
The Veil? Had that been the Veil? To him it had felt likelife.
“Malak touched my shoulder…” Nathan looked up, seeing Jim and Sasha’s faces the way they were meant to be. It didn’t feel like a trick.Oh God, let it not be a trick.
Sasha nodded, moving closer to Nathan, and Jim did as well, reaching out in hopes that Nathan might give up the knife. “That’s right. And you fell,” Sasha said, “right that second, Nate.You were gone. But now you’re back. You’re okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
The knife felt heavy in Nathan’s limp hand. He was still on guard, still waiting for them to reveal the lie. But when Jim’s hand closed around his to take the blade away, he couldn’t be strong anymore.
Nathan sunk forward against Jim, boneless, feeling the strange and forgotten comfort of his brother’s arms holding him up. He didn’t realize he was crying until he lifted his head just enough to speak and saw wetness on the shoulder of Jim’s shirt.
“Jim…” He tried to hold on, to cling and not be such dead weight, but he didn’t have any strength left. Jim had to hold all of him, and he did, as if it were the meagerest burden.
It was Jim. It was really him. Nathan breathed in and it even smelled like Jim, the way he hadn’t known his brother in so long.
Sasha. Nathan found the strength to look up to where he last remembered Sasha standing, and he was immediately scooped away from Jim into similarly strong and enveloping arms. He sank against Sasha just as eagerly, but when lips brushed his without warning, he flinched. There was a gasp in his throat as he looked up and saw blue, so beautiful, and that face gazing at him with all the emotions he had so deeply missed.
He wanted to banish the startled and pained look that flickered across Sasha’s face. He hadn’t meant to flinch. It had just been so long since he wanted such things. Since it mattered what he wanted. Tilting his head up, Nathan reconnected with those lips, kissing as deep and as desperately as he ever had.Sasha, loving him through skin, had those traitorous tears streaming down his cheeks like he was twelve years old all over again and the world would never be the same.
“Oh…yeah,” Nathan choked out, “that’s what that’s supposed to feel like.”
“Nathan…?” Sasha questioned in a breathless voice.
“Nathan,” Jim said, sounding angry and determined, “what did that bastard do to you?”
No. Nathan couldn’t bear for them to know the truth.
TO BE CONTINUED…
