by Tayte, Megan
‘Okay. One. Two. Three.’
He yanked. It hurt. A lot. I didn’t swear, but he did.
‘Sienna!’ he said sharply. ‘Get over here.’
She wheeled around and strode my way.
‘Leave it,’ I told Luke, trying to pull my top down.
I heard fabric rip and felt a wash of cold air on my skin and my t-shirt pooled in my lap. It had been white, but it was red now, I saw. With my blood. As were my jeans, but not with my blood. With hers.
‘Deep breaths, Scarlett,’ said Luke and then, to Sienna, now standing behind me, ‘Can you heal it?’
‘Partially. She’ll have a big scar.’
‘Do it now. Quickly.’
‘No!’ I slithered off the bed and turned on them. ‘I don’t want her hands on me.’
‘Scarlett, it’s not the time for –’
‘I don’t want her hands on me!’
I lurched across the room and collapsed on the window seat. Behind me, Luke and Sienna talked in low voices.
‘I don’t care – just go, now,’ I heard Luke hiss.
Opening the window all the way, I leaned my head out. The air was cool and sickly-sweet with the scent of the rosebushes below. My mother had planted those bushes. She loved roses. Red ones, to match her hair. To match the blood matting her hair.
The seat creaked – Luke, sitting beside me.
‘Sienna’s gone to get help,’ he said. ‘She’ll be back soon, and the bleeding will stop – the pain will stop.’
A gleaming-white angel statue beneath the window was reflecting flashing lights. Several lights.
‘Come away now. Come and lie on the bed. Scarlett!’
He grabbed my arms as I leaned further out of the window and craned my neck to see. The gates of Hollythwaite were wide open, and between them was parked not one vehicle but three – an ambulance, and two police cars.
‘The police?’ I sank back onto the seat and stared at Luke. ‘Why are the police here?’
‘Gabe called them,’ he said. ‘He had to, or the paramedics would’ve questioned it. Don’t worry, though; he promised to keep us out of it.’
‘Why?’
‘So we’re not stuck here answering impossible questions all night, like how we got here and how you got a massive slash across your back.’
‘No, why did Gabe call them? She hit her head. The bedside table – I saw the blood on it.’
Luke was silent, and the look on his face – I didn’t understand it.
‘She fell,’ I said. ‘She hit her head.’
‘Yes.’ He swallowed, then added gently: ‘But, Scarlett, you must’ve seen...’
What had I seen? My mother, prone on the floor. Her limbs splayed out like a starfish. Her skin waxy and white. Her eyes closed, no flicker of movement. Her hair clumped and sticky. Her neck red and –
Oh God.
I had seen. I had seen but I hadn’t seen.
Her throat. The angry marks, the ugly bruises forming.
‘I thought it was an accident,’ I whispered. ‘I thought she just fell.’
Luke tried to hold me but I twisted away and staggered across the room.
Because now I saw. A shadow looming over Mum. Her fighting ferociously, clawing at him. His hand tightening, crushing. Her eyes fixed on her memory wall – desperate and then... dimming.
I made it to the bathroom before the volcano erupted and I vomited over and over and over again, and then I passed out on tiles as solid as the wall standing between me and my mother.
41: PRECIPICE
I was in a bedroom. I was on a bed. Not my bedroom, not my bed. My sister’s. But it wasn’t my sister leaning over me.
‘Jude?’ I croaked. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Healing you,’ he said. ‘Lie still.’
His hands on my shoulders were hot and heavy, holding me down on the bed. I squinted through the blur of light and saw Sienna silhouetted at the window, her back to us.
‘Where’s Luke?’
‘Here,’ he called, ‘I’m here,’ and I turned my head on the pillow. He was braced in the doorframe, keeping his distance from me. ‘Jude told me to stay back,’ he said apologetically. ‘How do you feel?’
I said the first word that came into my head: ‘Black.’
‘What?’
‘That’s the best I can do,’ said Jude suddenly, releasing me.
I sat up and looked down. Someone had covered me in an old shirt – Sienna’s. As I put it on my back ached horribly. That was good. The pain focused me.
Grabbing the bedpost for support, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. I wavered there, testing my legs. Testing my strength.
‘She needs to rest,’ Jude was telling Luke. ‘She’s gone way too far today, and only time someplace safe can heal that.’
‘The island?’ said Luke. ‘Will Evangeline have her there?’
‘Definitely. We’ll take care of her.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘you won’t.’
‘Scarlett...’ they began in almost perfect unison, but I cut them off:
‘Don’t Scarlett me. I don’t need you to make decisions for me. I don’t need to be wrapped up in cotton wool – shut up on that island, tucked up in bed, taken care of. That’s not who I am. Not any more. I don’t need protection. What I need is –’
‘Blood,’ said a hard voice behind me. ‘What you need is blood.’
Sienna. Her first words to me this day.
I turned around slowly and looked at her – not past her, not over her: I looked at her. Her dress was bloody, her mascara was a mess, but she was standing tall – head up, shoulders back, chest out, take no prisoners.
‘Someone hurt our mother, Scarlett,’ she said, eyes fixed on me. ‘Someone meant to hurt her.’
‘Who?’ I demanded. ‘Who did this?’
Her face twisted. ‘I don’t know. But I will know. We will find him, Gabe and Daniel and me. We will hunt him down.’
‘Sienna...’ said Jude in a warning tone, but I spoke over him:
‘And then what?’
My sister’s hands fisted at her sides. ‘And then I will make him pay,’ she snarled.
Jude started protesting again, but she spat at him, ‘Back off! This is nothing to do with you.’ Then, leaving him reeling, she stalked across the room to me. She stopped right in front of me so that I had to tilt my head to keep eye contact. I’d forgotten how tall she was in heels. Just like Mum.
‘Blood must have blood,’ she told me, ‘and I will make that bastard bleed.’ She searched my eyes, and then leaned in and finished in a whisper: ‘The question is: will you make him bleed with me, Scarlett?’
I heard Jude say, ‘What was that?’
I heard Luke say, ‘What’s going on?’
I said nothing; I just stared at my sister. There was something flickering in her eyes. Something dark and dangerous and compelling.
‘You couldn’t save her,’ she said. ‘But you can avenge her. Perhaps you’ll decide you’re one of us after all. Perhaps blood is thicker than water.’
‘No!’ Jude burst in between us, squaring off with Sienna and forcing me back. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?! I know you’re hurting, but this – don’t you dare corrupt Scarlett into one of you!’
It was as if Jude had handed Sienna a permission slip on which was written ‘Hit me with it’. The torrent of fury that came his way for daring to challenge her was engulfing. Jude stood firm, but I staggered back – into Luke. Quickly, he guided me out of the fallout zone, over to the window, and pressed me down onto the seat. He stood in front of me, blocking the ugly scene beyond from my eyes if not my ears, and said urgently:
‘Listen to me, Scarlett. You’re angry, I know, and you have every reason to be. But Sienna – the Fallen – that’s not the answer. That’s not who you are. You’re not one of them. You’re not. Let them find who did this. Let them deal with it, if that’s the way it’s going to be. But you... you keep
out of it.’
I couldn’t bear the fear in his voice. But neither could I bear the rage clawing at my insides and the voracious need for vengeance.
Leaning out of the window, I took a final look at the lodge. The police cars were in position, but the ambulance was gone. My mother was gone.
Forever?
The sun had set. Darkness was closing in. The air was deathly still – and silent.
I turned back. Jude was standing by the bed. Alone. In front of me stood Luke. Alone. And there I sat. Alone. All of us at our own precipice. Teetering on the edge.
Luke dropped to his knees and slid his arms around me. His hands brushed the scar on my back, sending a flare of pain through me.
‘Scarlett,’ he said, ‘please. I love you. Stay with me. Stay you.’
I’d chosen him before. I’d chosen him over the life of a loyal Cerulean. I’d chosen him though being with him meant not quite being with him. I’d chosen him because I loved him, because it had been right to choose him.
Now, he was asking me to choose him all over again – him and all he represented. But whether that was the right choice to make now, I didn’t know.
I leaned into Luke and I pressed my lips to his forehead and I whispered, ‘I love you.’ Because that was all I could say. Because that was all I did know for certain at that moment.
That and the fact that if my mother’s enemy – my enemy – were in this house right now, I would leap on him and I would put my hands on his chest and I would suck the breath right out of him and I would kill him, I would kill him, I would kill him.
I would kill him.
And what did that make me?
***
AUTHOR’S NOTE
‘Arrrrrrrgh!’ I hear you yell. ‘You can’t leave the story here!’
Sorry. Sorry! But right now there can’t be a neat ending for Scarlett Blake, stuck as she is between the devil and the deep blue sea. There’s a long way to go yet before she can sleep easy at night. A long way… and the road ahead is tortuous.
If you’ve followed The Ceruleans from Death Wish, through Forget Me Not and Wild Blue Yonder and Devil and the Deep, then thank you. Thank you for taking a trip into this little world I’ve created. Thank you for believing in my characters. Thank you for caring what happens next. Speaking of which…
I can promise you this: the finale of the series, Darkly, Deeply, Beautifully, will answer all your questions, and plenty you didn’t think to ask. It’s the most dramatic, the most emotional, the most revelatory book – everything I’ve been dying to tell you, but held back.
By way of a glimpse into Book 5, I will leave you for now with the song that echoed in my head as I wrote: Muse’s ‘Madness’.
With my very best wishes,
Megan
megantayte.com
facebook.com/megantayte
@MeganTayte
CONTENTS
PART 1: THE SAME, ONLY DIFFERENT
1: BLUE MOON
2: TWO HALVES
3: CHASM
4: HUNGER
5: ENOUGH
6: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
7: PROMISE
8: ALONE
9: ALL GREEK TO ME
10: EVANGELINE
11: IF I HAVEN’T GOT YOU
12: CHANGES AFOOT
13: THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
14: POTENTIAL
15: THE MEMORY WALL
16: THE DARK SECRET LOVE
PART 2: THE BLOOD-DIMMED TIDE
17: ENTRANCES AND EXITS
18: TESTING
19: FREE WILL
20: MY LITTLE GIRL
21: SENSELESS
22: YOU KNOW ME
23: IT’S YOU
24: SAFE
25: THE BLUE ANGEL
26: FALL WITH ME
27: SOME KIND OF HOLD
28: BEGUILE
29: ELIZABETH AND GABRIEL
30: TITANIUM
31: I WON’T LIE TO YOU
32: ELIZABETH AND GABRIEL V.2
33: THE WHO AND THE WHY
34: ON THE LEVEL
35: SHADOWS
36: THE GOLD OF THE AZURE
37: PROBABLY NOTHING
38: MUSE
39: NON SERVIAM
40: LOOMING
41: PRECIPICE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
