Page 19 of A Match Made in Hell
Then Past Willow tips forward, and she’s gone too.
‘No!’ I’m crawling to the edge before I realise what I’m doing, needing to know, needing to see – I peer over the ledge, but night has fallen now, the moon a faint glimmer over the sea. I pushed Sasha. Ipushedher. I can’t hide from this reality any more and I can’t . . . I don’t . . .
‘Where is she?’ I gasp. ‘Is she . . . ? She can’t be . . . I didn’t mean to . . .’
Panic and nausea claw a path up my throat; my fingers dig into grass and earth as though that can save me, but it’s too late, I’ve already gone over and I took Sasha with me. A whirlpool of guilt churns in my belly.I did this. I did this to my best friend.
Someone is shouting – Noah, I think. There’s a splash of water. More shouting. I want to call out to him, to tell him it was an accident and I’m sorry, to beg him to tell me he’s found her alive, to tell meanythingthat will ease the blade currentlycarving its way through my heart, but Sathanas’s hand is on my arm, hauling me to my feet.
‘No.’ I struggle. ‘No. I need to know what happened. I need to know if Sasha –’
He ignores me. The darkness returns, and I want it to devour me, I want it to never end, because Ididthis, I did this to myself, to Sasha, it’s all my fault, I deserve to be exactly where I am – I catch a glimpse of lightning, a car spinning, a tree edging closer and closer until it disappears in a spray of water – and then light gleams, bright and beautiful and shining.
I open my eyes, register we’re in Sathanas’s sitting room, and immediately topple over.
8
Sathanas catches me before I fall head first into his coffee table.
His fingers dig into my hips as he steadies me, forcing my knees to stop from buckling. My breaths come out in shallow gasps. Although I don’t need them, I feel winded anyway, like I’ve been punched in the chest.What happened to Sasha?
‘Did she . . . Did I kill . . . ?’
He drops his hands. ‘She missed the rocks. Hit the water. She’s in hospital.’
My legs give way, and I stumble into the side of the sofa, my fingers clutching the velvet like it’s the parachute I didn’t have on the cliff. She’salive. Well, at least one of us had decent aim. At least I haven’t been responsible for another person dying because of one of my stupid, stupid ideas. ‘Will she be okay?’
There’s a long pause. ‘I don’t know.’
My fingers dig into the fabric. Shehasto be okay.
I wish he’d never shown me what happened. What kind of person I am.
‘I hate you,’ I whisper. I hate myself more.
‘You asked for this.’
‘I didn’t ask to –’
‘To see the truth?’
Tears stream down my cheeks. ‘And what is that?’
‘You tell me.’
I know what he wants me to say – that admitting it out loud is the real test – but the words catch on my tongue like flies in honey. The wings of my admission flutter and fail. I always knew I was a disaster; I never realised I wasthis.
But if I don’t say it out loud, I’ll fail this task too, and I’ll be forced to live here with the knowledge of what I’ve done forever. Another bad memory to add to the pile if I end up in the Void.
Mum was right about me. I’m impulsive. I make split-second decisions without thinking them through. Every bad thing that’s ever happened is because of a choice I made – her death, and nowmine. If I’d followed the path she’d wanted for me, if I’d done as I promised after she’d died, I wouldn’t have been on that clifftop. I’d have been safe below, with Noah, the nice, sensible boy she’d chosen for me.
And Sasha wouldn’t be fighting for her life in a hospital bed. The thought has me choking and spluttering, drowning in my guilt, and I can’t breathe, my chest is too tight, I’m ready to burst open, there’s too many tears and I can’t get them all out – Sathanas swears and hauls me against him, wrapping his arms around my middle.
I’m so surprised he’s helping me that for a moment, I freeze. His warmth and strength seeps into me, solid and unbreakable while I’m fragmenting around him. I feel the rhythm of his breathing against my back, and I use it to try and control mine.
In, out. In, out.
I dig my nails into his forearms.
