Page 55 of Blood from the Marrow
Elena nodded and left before she showed any more weakness. By the time she’d crossed the great room and dining room, she had gathered herself just enough to stop the tremble in her fingers. She shoved away the stink of blood and heartbreaking stench of Marisol’s fear, and focused on the fact that they were safe. Together and safe, despite Sayah’s efforts to fuck with her.
“No way!” Marisol’s delighted shriek carried down the hall. “That’s not Elena!”
Standing in the drawing room where all the furniture was covered in thick, white sheets, Marisol was holding a frame in one hand and covering her mouth with the other.
“Is this really you?” Marisol’s hazel eyes were the mossy green of vibrant life.
Elena looked at Zuri carrying the sheet she’d pulled off a mantel. A mantel holding the few portraits and rare photos Elena had allowed herself to keep.
Illuminating the room with joy Elena never thought would warm her skin again, Marisol looked between Elena and the image she was holding. “But those curls.” She furrowed her brow. “How did you even get bangs to curl like that?”
Elena strode toward them, an involuntary smile trapped between her teeth. “I’ll have you know that was the apex ofRegency fashion at the time.” She looked down at a version of herself she barely recognized.
If she closed her eyes, Elena could still smell the white roses pinned to her elaborate hairdo. The silk roses cascading down the back of her hand-sewn gown had looked so real to her then. The suffocating heat of sitting for the painter with a corset so tight she couldn’t breathe.
“When was that again?” Zuri teased.
“A long time ago,” Elena replied with a quirked brow.
“You looked gorgeous,” Marisol muttered to herself, gaze following the curve of the highly structured dress.
Elena’s chest warmed. What she would have given to have Marisol and Zuri with her then. What she wouldn’t trade to have spent every moment of her lives with them.
“I’m just disappointed there’s not a wayward polaroid of her with teased hair and shoulder pads from the eighties,” Zuri said with a chuckle, setting the sheet on top of a covered armchair in front of the cold fireplace. “You know she was giving fullNine-to-Five.”
Marisol’s energy was blindingly bright. “Were you?”
Elena couldn’t help but keep the game going. “Or I shaved my head into a spiked mohawk and followed The Ramones around for a few years,” she replied with a shrug even as she laughed.
Marisol picked up a small black-and-white photo of Francisca, the only photo of her blood mother Elena had. It was one more than she had of her birth mother. The photo was a blurry image of Francisca sitting on the porch of her country estate.
Elena had been standing under the shade of a sprawling royal poinciana tree, its flowers bright orange, watching the photographer work. She’d made a joke she couldn’t remember, ruining Francisca’s stoic pose and the photograph. Elena’slaughter withered in her dry throat while the memory of Francisca’s reverberated in her chest.
Elena had been so young then, she still believed in forever love. She hadn’t learned that forever meant watching everyone she loved turn to ash. Suddenly, the sheets meant to protect her useless things from dust looked like funeral shrouds. Adornments in the beautiful prison she’d built to house her memories and her grief.
She’d tried so hard to guard herself against the inevitable march of death. While Marisol and Zuri gleamed with life, it was Elena who’d been dying. She was the ghost haunting her own existence, so terrified of losing them that she’d already started grieving while they were still here. Still breathing. Still choosing her despite the risk.
After everything she’d done. All the ways she’d failed. Elena didn’t deserve them. Didn’t deserve the love she’d lose.
“Elena?” Marisol’s voice was soft, concerned. “What’s wrong?”
The question cracked something open in Elena’s chest. Something she’d been keeping locked away for weeks. Months. Maybe centuries.
“I can’t protect you.” The words tumbled out, broken and raw and revoltingly true. “I keep telling myself I can, but I can’t. Tonight proved that. You were alone up there with those vampires and I wasn’t—” Her voice shattered. “I’m going to be the reason you get killed. Both of you.”
Zuri moved closer, but Elena stepped back, hands shaking.
“Loving me is a fucking death sentence,” she said, confession pouring from her. “Everyone I’ve ever loved dies. Everyone who gets close to me?—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Zuri lunged forward and caught Elena by the wrist. “Everyone dies sometime. You didn’t invent?—”
“You don’t understand.” Elena saw everything with startling clarity. “Sayah is coming for me, and she’ll use you to destroy me. She’ll hurt you to hurt me and I may not be able to stop it.” The intrusive image of watching Zuri and Marisol die the way she’d watched her sons die nearly knocked her to her knees. A sob wracked her raw chest. “I’d die for you,” she vowed, hoping any gods left were still listening. She nearly swore to Lilith as if she were watching from some celestial throne. “I’d die for both of you, but that’s not enough.”
“Then try living for us instead,” Zuri said before pulling Elena into a hug. “What the fuck good are you to anyone dead?”
Elena couldn’t stop her tears even when they streamed down her face and onto Zuri’s neck.
“You want to protect us?” Marisol hugged her from behind.
