Page 75 of Light As A Feather
It’s fitting that we find ourselves out here once again, a place that I’ve loved all my life, but also a place where he took things that I wish I had never given. It’s a pattern with him, taking what I’m not willing to yield until I can’t seem to find a way to say no—the compromise of a lifetime.
“Ivan, don’t do this,” I beg as I grip his wrists and use every ounce of strength I have to push his hovering arms away from me. Kicking is useless. He has me pinned. All I have is appealing to his desire to claim me. “If you take me like this, I’ll make your afterlife miserable. I will never submit to you the way you truly want. The way that would fulfill you.”
“I guess I’ll take what I can get.” He leans into it, applying more pressure. And I’m losing steam, shaking—not just from the cold but from bone-deep fear that the death that I’ve long expected is finally closing its grasp around my throat. “The problem is, Solaneen, you always thought you were so much more special than is warranted. You are unique, I’ll give you that, but?—”
Movement to the left catches both our attention. Ivan’s just distracted enough for me to gain a little ground in holding him at bay. Really, it’s just prolonging the end, but I’ll be grateful for what moments I can get, breathing in the brisk air—forest and musk and wood filling my lungs, reminding me that I’m home and that’s a silver lining at the very least.
It was never the dying I was afraid of. It was the possibility of doing it somewhere else. Away fromhim. I might be a prisoner in the place that I once called a sanctuary, but knowing what I know, it’s a small consolation that we’re never really gone, that there’s still a chance I’ll be able to see him, know he’s okay, love him from a distance, maybe. Who knows what Ivan has planned for me, but at least there’s that.
In these few seconds I’ve had to distance myself from the knife above me, I’ve found some sliver of peace, come to terms with my death, as much as one can. When I look up at Ivan again and our eyes meet, I see the angel of death waiting over his shoulder, and he’s gloriously familiar, the solace of deep brown eyes and curls, and…
Everything happens so fast.
Hawthorne’s arm hooks around Jayden’s throat and yanks him backward.
Ivan’s disgruntled cursing.
A flash of silver arching down and back through the air.
Hawthorne’s groan of pain.
Thrashing struggle.
Then, heavy breathing comes from a single set of lungs, lingering in the darkness just beyond my sight.
A figure emerges, knife clutched in hand.
I sit up, scramble back, and run into a fallen tree that halts my escape.
Then three little words come from a voice like warm tea.
“Are you okay?” The knife falls from his hand as he clutches his side and stumbles forward.
“Yes,” I breathe out as I stare up at Hawthorne, whose side is soaked in blood. “Are you?”
“I don’t know.”
Getting stabbed hurts like a motherfucker, and that’s saying something; I’ve been through some shit.
Didn’t help that we had to drag an unconscious Jayden back to the house. At least it was just him. It was a risk, trying to disarm him that way, but I wasn’t ready to do more damage to my best friend until I got more information, which is what I intend to do when he wakes up. In the meantime, we wait on the other side of the two-way mirror, observing him.
“You should be lying down,” I argue for the third time as Sol sits in the chair, elevating her leg on the desk and icing her ankle. We’ve both seen better days.
“Yeah, I could say the same about you. But here we are.”
“Fine. Tell me again what happened.”
She sighs and tilts her head to look at me. “He just showed up. Of course, I invited him inside to wait for you. We were talking in the living room, and he just started spewing hatred at me. He turned violent; I ran. He hunted me down; I hid. Then you know...” She swallows thickly. “But the weird thing is that he was covered in dirt when he got here. Not just his clothes, but his nails, like he’d been digging or something.”
“Digging?” I pause my pacing. That’s new information. “Well, that’s fucking weird.”
“It’s all fucking weird,” she agrees. “But you have to admit, it was clever, using Jayden to get to me when he couldn’t. What a way to really hit you where it hurts. Taking me away and implicating your best friend. If you hadn’t found us, you would have had to spend the rest of your life thinking it was Jayden’s hand that took my life, not realizing that it was Ivan who forced him to do it.”
“You’re sure it was Ivan?” I hate that I have to ask, but I need the reassurance so we can move past this. So I can forgive my best friend without wondering.
“Yes. I’m absolutely sure.”
It never ceases to amaze me, the cruel lengths this son of a bitch is willing to go to get what he wants. “I can’t believe I almost lost you. I barely found you in time.”
