Page 85 of The HalloQueen

“Here. Give me the knife.” I jumped, having almost forgotten that Yusuf was here but nodded my head toward the pile, not even caring if he was going to murder me at that point; let him have his pound of flesh if that’s what he needed.

I watched with watery eyes as he strategically placed small lacerations in the creases of Thomas’ elbows and on the tops of his feet, and packed comfrey into each wound, wrapping each with the roll of gauze I’d gotten from my purse. He sighed, curling in on himself and resigned that he might lose both of his lovers in one night.

“I’m so sorry, Yusuf, but it was too late. There was no bringing her back.”

“I know,” He sniffled, “that doesn’t make breaking the bond hurt any less.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Well, you’d know, right? I’m sure your bond is in tatters right now too.”

We pressed our hands against all of Thomas’ wounds and I breathed slightly easier as each gauze strip began to seep with the same venomous slime.

“I told him there was no bond,” I spoke softly, “and yet he still told me he loved me. I don’t feel like a bond is breaking - maybe this is all a farce. Maybe we just cared for each other without the bond he swore was there.”

“Of course, he loves you, Annabel. He loves you with a ferocity he never showed either of us. You are fated to be together- that is why your heart hurts as bad as it does right now. That’s the bond.”

My eyes overflowed with tears and a sob escaped while I wiped my face on my sleeve, not removing my hands from his wounds for a moment. “Stupid fucking bond. It’s like I don’t get a say in my own life when it comes to him. He makes all these awful decisions and I’m just stuck loving him no matter what? Will I be stuck loving him forever even if he’s gone? What if he’s changed? How will we know if this works? When will he come back? I’m…I’m new to all of this.”

He gave me a sad smile, “I know, darling girl. We can only wait. He will either wake up and be okay, or he will kill us both.”

“Jesus, you’re just about as good at comforting as he is, no wonder you got along for so long,” I laughed.

Yusuf leaned against the island cabinets and closed his eyes, keeping his hands pressing into Thomas’ feet. “Has he told you about how horrifically he got sick on the ship to America?”

“The ship? Oh god, I forget how old he is sometimes.”

He chuckled, “It was horrible. We were supposed to be these big, bad, monsters - or at least that’s what the French had painted us as before we fled, and there was the baby of us, only a few decades old, vomiting over the side of the ship for weeks. He claimed the sailors tasted awful and that was why he was losing weight, he has always been a food snob, but it was really because he couldn’t handle seasickness. I don’t think we ever got him on a boat after that. He didn’t even return to Paris until planes were invented.”

Thomas groaned beneath my hands and I used a clean towel to dab the slime away from the poultices, hopeful that the response meant it was working. “Until planes were invented…do you have any idea how insane that sounds to me? I’m not even thirty. My life has been made up of thrilling moments like watching terrorist attacks live on TV or being delighted when the MySpace servers were wiped from the internet, and yes I’m aware it’s strange those are two defining moments in my life. I didn’t flee a revolution and then wait for fucking planes to be invented.” I sighed, “I don’t know what he could possibly see in me when he’s lived through so much and I had my first kiss only fifteen years ago.”

“You are a green witch, you are goddess blessed.”

“That means nothing to me. I have no idea how any of this works.”

“Then how exciting that you’ll have him to teach you.”

I lifted one hand to sweep a piece of Thomas’ perfectly shiny hair off his lifeless face. “Please, please, please, let me keep him.” I placed my forehead against his, “I’m not done with him yet.”

“I wasn’t done with her yet either,” He spoke softly, heartbreak lacing every word, “Over 200 years…tens of thousands of nights together, and he told me, he said to my face that if she touched you that he would kill her. He knew how this would end. He knew who he loved more.”

“He tried to get her to leave, Yusuf. He offered to leave me and return with her to you. I swear, he didn’t want to hurt you like this.”

Yusuf scoffed, “No, you’ll find he never intentionally hurts anyone, but he’s quite good at unintentionally achieving the same result. He has a talent for being quite the dick.”

That made me laugh, “It’s okay, I do too. Must be why we’re made for each other.” I grimaced, the pain from my injuries amplifying as the adrenaline began to wane. I laid my head on his chest, keeping pressure on his neck, “there’s really nothing I can do but wait?”

Yusuf nodded and smoothed my hair, “yes, Annabel, but you’ll find in your life with an immortal that we have incredible patience. We can wait forever for the good moments to come.”

I smiled, “he’s told me something similar before.” I sighed, acknowledging the creature across the kitchen who’d tried to kill me several times, “What do we do with Monique? It’s not like I can call the police.”

“No. We’ll have to call your mothers to lead the ceremony. I guess you’re getting a little bit of Green Witch training this evening as well, you’ll get to witness how we say goodbye.”

I smiled sadly at the handsome man with olive skin and coarse black hair who was now staring down an empty and unfamiliar eternity, “Thank you for sitting with me. Thank you for talking to me.”

He rubbed my shoulder, “I don’t know what to do next either, Annabel. We’ll both just have to do our best to keep the love alive even if we have to do it alone.”

“But I don’t want to do it alone.” The man I knew was the love of my life was still as death. His cold head was heavy in my lap, his normal playfulness trapped within a frozen body. “A life without him would be like a life without the sun. I need him.”

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