Page 84 of The Royal Street Witch
It all makes sense. I fucked with him at Bastian’s house. I exhibited my power, I humiliated him, and the deal he made with Bastian was just a cover up for his real intentions. Murdering me.
Arson, the fire department said. Molotov cocktails on the roof, and Chantal suspects a witch helped, but there’s no way of knowing for sure except a life was taken, that was their intention, and I might as well die now too.
I cry it out and soon after Chantal is whispering on the phone incessantly, while Mercury, my little survivor, curls up on me, won’t leave my side, and I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to drink. I don’t want to go back to a life that doesn’t have Bastian in it.
I couldn’t save him and how come? How come I was so late? The “how come’s” and “why’s” torment my every move. And Chantal is forcing me to drink, to eat fucking Life cereal for God’s sake, but I couldn’t pull him down the stairs in time, I couldn’t save him. Vampires are most vulnerable to the sun and he wasn’t in a fireproof bed because it was only temporary. We were going to leave, we were going to be free.
What did he wake up to? What went through his mind? The flames, the sun, his heavy sleep, nowhere to run. It was supposed to be temporary.
More whispers from Chantal and I hear my mother’s name and I don’t want to speak to her, don’t want to look at her face, full of pity and possibly anger for sleeping with the enemy.
Chantal puts a protective spell over her home so no vampire or witch with ill-will can set foot in, and I haven’t heard from Cassius nor Nicola but they may want me dead too. Chantal called Cassius, said the words no brother can bear to hear. The line fell silent, then a bang and finally the screams of a suffering man so loud I could hear it from across the room. Cassius is dying inside now, I know he is.
I rise from Chantal’s couch, a calling erupting my agony. I have to go home. Because the thought is surfacing, the forbidden thought, running through my ragged mind. A wonder at first, and then a feverish question. Can I bring him back? Death is the punishment—one my own best friend, my own mother, would have to impose on me if they found out. An unforgiveable offense.
I need Winnie.
I steal out of the house while Chantal sleeps, wearing her sweatsuit because the only clothes I have are still pungent with smoke and death. I carry Bastian with me, in the black velvet pouch. Chantal scraped him from my locked fist, grey ashes and that obsidian ring that didn’t protect him, not from what we created.
If Chantal knew, she’d say no, it’s not safe, too much danger, don’t go. She’d hold me hostage but I’m already a hostage to misery. And if someone wants to kill me, they will do it with me knowing, with me staring them straight in the eye.
There’s a silence in my courtyard, which feels so wrong as the loud memories of the fire rage through my mind. My shoes crunch over ashes against the brick floor, as my garnet pulses, and my eyes focus upon Cassius.
He’s on the ground, leaning against my back door, head bowed. He knows I’m here, yet he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move a muscle.
“I know it was Franklin,” I say, the first coherent words I’ve uttered in what feels like an eternity.
If I didn’t know better, I would think him dead, his stillness making me shiver.
“Of course it was Franklin. Franklin and you.”
I inhale and then he’s flying toward me, so fast I can’t stop him, but truthfully, I don’t try to. And when I look at him, his breath sputtering in my face, all I see are his cheeks caked in blood tears.
A hand grips around my neck, nails digging into the flesh, and his fangs are bared, strands of hair clinging to the blood on his cheeks. Eyes wild and cloaked in sorrow, and he turns, pressing me against the wall and I just let him.
“Bite me,” I whisper with clenched teeth. “Do it, Cassius. I die, you die.” And in this moment I could die. I could slip into a forever sleep. But then I seehisface,hiseyes,him. Even though I can’t imagine a world where he isn’t in it, I can’t imagine what we had—the beauty, the purity, the love—being for nothing. No, something good had to come out of it and even though I don’t know what it is now, I have to believe it.
My heart races, the blood pumping in the tips of my fingers, preparing to cast Cassius off me, but something changes in his eyes.
“Two,” he mutters with astonished eyes and it’s like a thunder strike to my core, the sucker punch of a giant fist. There’s something about how his mouth twitches, how he gasps, and his fingers slip from my neck and his body falls to his knees. Two.
Two what?
Crumpled on all fours, Cassius sucks in air like he will never breath again, his nails digging into the brick, his back heaving up and down. I’m drawn to comfort him, to help him, so I slide down next to his writhing body and slowly place my hand on his back. His head bursts up, fangs readied to kill, and I pull my hand back to my chest.
“Do you know?” he demands with rabid eyes, and I draw back again, chastising myself at the thought of offering him comfort.
“Know what?”
He rolls so that his back is against my home and slides a knee up for his arm to rest upon. That one word, the way he said it rattles in my heart. Two.
Sobs break free from his lips and my tears follow as I lie flat on the brick, arms outstretched as wide as the heavens, the tears creating pools inside my ears.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.” There’s so much disbelief, so much shock. I know the screams will come back, the screams of torture and pain but for right now, it’s silent tears that can’t believe in this reality.
We stay like that for minutes, maybe fifteen, maybe twenty. I’m not really sure. Wrapped in our collective despair, our pain brimming from our eyes, from every breath we exhale. And then finally, finally he speaks, while I stare at the stars, the smell of smoke still wafting in the air.
“I want to hate you, but I can’t. Because I know it was him, you did his bidding. And I know he loved you more than anything, more than even me. And to him, it would have been worth it. Dying so he could feel that kind of love would have been worth it.”
