by Stacey Jay
But maybe that would have been better. At the moment, I don’t know. All I know is that when I finally find Ben—a dozen yards away, illuminated by the car’s headlights, his back against a tree where Romeo has propped him up, his body limp and his face a bloody mess—my body fills with an agony worse than any weapon could ever cause.
“Ben!” I run to him, shoving past Romeo, who stands swaying on his feet. I don’t spare him a glance, don’t worry when I kneel next to Ben, turning my back on him. He won’t stab me again—obviously that wasn’t on his superior’s agenda or I wouldn’t be whole right now. But even if he does, I don’t care.
Let him do his worst. Nothing can be more horrible than hearing Ben’s soft moan as I hold his broken face in my hands, watching his lids flutter as he tries to look at me but fails. His eyes are so swollen it looks like someone has slipped golf balls under his skin. His cheeks, chin, and forehead are split open and bleeding, and he’s lost several of his front teeth. His nose is broken and maybe his right cheekbone. Maybe both cheekbones. Even if he lives, he’ll never be the same. He will always be damaged and scarred and—
Scarred. Some faraway part of my brain senses the smooth skin on my right arm, feels the slight breeze stirring the soft blond hairs that have grown on my neck and face. Jason hasn’t simply healed me, he’s healed me, reversed years-old damage, something Ambassador magic has never been able to do.
And if he could do it for me …
Gently, I lean Ben’s head back against the tree and turn. Jason is already there, a few feet behind me, waiting for me to work things through with a smile on his face. Romeo stands woodenly beside him, staring blindly at some spot high in the tree, his lips moving without forming words, as if he’s in a trance. I begin to wonder how much is left of that brain I can see shining in the harsh yellow of the headlights.
“What do you want? I’ll do whatever you want,” I whisper through the tears that stream down my face. “Just … heal him.”
Jason shakes his head, feigning regret. “I wish I could, but my powers only work on those touched by my magic. Ambassadors or Mercenaries. We’re all from the same source, you know.”
“I know.” I suck in a breath. My nose is running along with my eyes. If it could, I know the rest of me would weep as well. I can see where this is going, see the inevitable conclusion to our talk.
“So …” He lets the word trail off with a shrug. “In order for me to help Ben …”
I don’t say a word. It’s impossible. I’ll never do what he asks. Never.
“Come now, Juliet. Life doesn’t always have to be such a tragedy,” Jason says, laughing softly. “You’ve been granted an amazing opportunity. A second chance at true love that you shouldn’t let go to waste.” He tosses the knife he pulled from my stomach in the air, letting it spin once, twice, before catching the hilt in his hand. “I promise, it’s much more fun to play when you’re on the winning side. Just cut this boy a little here, a little there, enough to prove your lethal intent. Then you’ll take your vows to us, and she …” He turns to look over his shoulder, gesturing vaguely into the darkness before turning back around. “Well, she’s out there. I can feel her.”
I stare into the night, remembering Nurse’s shared memory of waiting in the darkness, watching, hoping. Is she out there hoping now? Why didn’t she show up at the theater and stop this before it started?
“She likes to wait until we’re gone,” Jason says. “But she’ll come take care of this boy. She’ll administer the vows and transform him into a vessel of light.”
I sob, unable to keep the sound from bursting from my lips. I can see it now, this new life he describes, a second eternity stretching out before me, but this time it will be Ben I fight. Ben on the other side of the divide, bright and beautiful and unreachable. Ben, who will only know that I hurt him, betrayed him, that I didn’t love him the way I swore I did. This monster will never allow me to tell him the truth.
Maybe I won’t even want to. Maybe by the time I see Ben again, however many years from this moment, in whatever corpse I’m inhabiting, I will have become so twisted by the darkness that I won’t remember what it feels like to love. I’ll be like Romeo, wicked and hollow, the love I feel for Ben dead inside me.
Life is precious—his life especially—but there are worse things to lose.
I turn back to Ben, brush his hair away from his ruined face, a part of me wishing he was conscious so I could say good-bye, the other part glad that he’s beyond feeling pain. I lean my lips down to his ear, and the Ben smell of him drifts into my nose, making my heart break all over again. “I love you.”
“I assume that means your answer is no.” I turn to see that Jason has moved closer. His smile is lower on his face, his knife higher in the air. “You know what that means.”
I know. It means he’ll kill us both. Slowly. Torturously. See how long we’ll last before we break, if we break. If or when. I don’t know which it will be, but I know I’ll hold tight to the love I feel for Ben, to the light in my darkness.
I don’t answer Jason’s question, just stare into his empty eyes, wondering which are more vacant—Romeo’s because he has so little brain, or this monster’s because he has no soul. None at all, not even the ghost of a memory of what it is like to love, to be mortal and gloriously, horribly vulnerable.
I suppose that’s why he doesn’t expect it.
I don’t expect it either, but when it happens I’m not surprised. Romeo is as wrong as he’s ever been—as he’s always been—but I heard the truth in the words he whispered onstage. He truly thought he was helping me by shoving that knife in my gut, just as he thinks he’s helping me when he lifts the gun tucked into the front of his pants and fires it twice.
Once into the center of Ben’s forehead. Once into the center of mine.
TWENTY-THREE
There is a moment of unbelievable pressure as the bullet pushes through bone, and then I’m floating, falling backward in slow motion, eyes sliding closed. Dimly, I’m aware that I’ve fallen on top of Ben. His knee is pressed into my back, the softness of his belly cradles my head, and I’m glad. It’s good to touch him, to know he’s close, though he lies so terribly still. But even the fear that he’s already dead doesn’t upset me the way it should. The moment is surreal, something happening onstage that I watch from a distance.
There is no pain, only the feeling of drifting inside my body and a strange, determined detachment.
I can imagine what I should be feeling as I listen to Jason scream at Romeo and then the air goes quiet—quiet like the tomb, quiet like the mist, quiet like the end of the world.
I can remember the panic that should prick at my skin as the headlights illuminating the night fade to black and it begins to rain, cool drops that sting my face and slip between my parted lips. And then the sounds come, a soft sigh in the night, a hushed whisper to “Come, now,” and I know I should be afraid. My old body is coming. I can hear her in the distance, feel her on the wind, but I can’t move, can’t run. I should be afraid, but I’m not.
I haven’t betrayed Ben. He hasn’t betrayed me. We haven’t betrayed the promises we made or the things we believe. It is … good. And whatever comes next will come next.
And then I feel her hands on my face, hear her voice calling to me, and fear creeps into my borrowed heart. “Juliet! Juliet, please. Hear me. Open your eyes.”
My lids slide up, obeying her command. I don’t want to, but I can’t seem to help myself, can’t keep from struggling to focus, from pulling Gemma’s—Nurse’s—shadow from the surrounding night. There is no moon; there are no stars, no more headlights. It’s almost impossible to see. If she hadn’t spoken, if I couldn’t smell the hint of her expensive perfume, I wouldn’t know whose fingers feather along my neck.
“I’ve frightened that thing away. It’s not too late,” she whispers, voice bright as she finds my pulse. “You’re still alive and you’re ready. I can take you with me.”
I tr
y to shake my head, to ask her what she means, to tell her I don’t want to go, that I want to stay with Ben until … until …
But I can’t move. I can only blink, disturbed, confused.
“You’ve found it. Your peace.” She sighs. “Now I can offer you sanctuary and power. You will be one of us, safe in our realms, only coming to earth when you feel moved by the light to fight against them. When you feel ready.”
Her hand runs down my neck, over my shoulder, down to my hand. She takes it in hers and squeezes. “I’m so glad I found you in time.”
In time? She hasn’t found me in time. Ben is dead. Dead. Gone forever, and the world is a darker place for it. And what about Ariel? She has a bullet in her brain. No matter how detached I feel, some part of me knows that this body is dying.
“Where …” I swallow, wincing. The pain is beginning to find me, crawling over my flesh, a thousand tiny insect feet bearing misery. “Where …”
“I had to leave the school. I needed someplace safe, so I sent Gemma to Mike’s apartment before the play, instead of after,” she says, not a hint of regret in her voice. “And then they starting talking, and I didn’t want to interrupt them. I could tell they were so close to finding their faith in each other. And I was right!” She actually claps her hands together in excitement. “Gemma and Mike are both burning bright. We can go. Both of us. Back to the light.”
“What about … Ben?” I ask, fighting the tears that rise in my eyes. I don’t have the time to cry, or the strength. “Ben and …”
“Gemma and Mike were the soul mates you were sent for. What happened with you and Ben was …” She squeezes my hand again, a gesture I can tell is meant to be comforting, but isn’t. “Well, it was beautiful, for both of you, but it wasn’t meant to be. It’s time for you to leave this body, and Ben and Ariel aren’t soul mates. In the end, they wouldn’t have fueled our cause the way Gemma and Mike will.”
So that’s it. Ariel and Ben are secondary concerns because they aren’t suitable food for the light. Romeo was right. The Ambassadors might be a more refined breed of vampire, but that’s all they are. Vampires, masquerading as a worthwhile cause, as champions of goodness and defenders of true love.
They don’t know nearly as much about love as they assume. Love doesn’t want people to stay ignorant and frightened. Love doesn’t value obedience over all else. Love doesn’t judge and find some lives—or loves—more valuable than others. Love doesn’t use people and throw them away. Love stays, and makes you stronger, even when the person you love is gone.
“Don’t cry, dear. You will be one of us now,” she says, misunderstanding the reason for the sob that escapes my lips. “Come, we must hurry. Gemma won’t stay buried much longer, and the specter could return at any—”
“No.”
“No?” She shakes her head, a stirring of shadows in the night. I catch another whiff of Gemma’s perfume and then another, lighter smell. Rosemary and roses and dust from familiar roads. The wind blows harder, pushing the clouds away from the crescent moon.
“I don’t want to be one of you.” I turn my face toward the sweet wind, knowing she is coming. Ready to take her hand. Nurse said touching my old body would take me where the Ambassadors and Mercenaries can’t find me. It sounds like a place I’d like to be.
“Juliet, please, this isn’t the time for—”
“Go away,” I say, at the same moment the whisper threads its way through the darkness. “Come. Come.” I can see her now, a silhouette gliding across the damp grass, her long hair blowing in the wind. It catches the moonlight and flashes in the dark, curled fingers urging me to find my way.
I pull my hand from Nurse’s and hold it out toward her. I can’t go to my other self, but I know she’ll come for me.
“What if I grant you and Ben another chance? Would your answer still be the same?”
My hand trembles, dips lower in the air. Is such a thing possible?
“If you renew your vows, I can send you back to the moment you entered Ariel’s body, just before you met Ben,” she says. “You’ll be able to keep him safe in another reality, while doing more good work for the Ambassador cause.”
“Another reality?”
“There are hundreds of realms where events play out differently than they have here. It is the greatest secret of Ambassador magic, so great that not even the Mercenaries know we possess it. But we have power over time and space that they do not.”
“So … I could really go back? And he’d be alive?”
“He would. And you can keep him safe. All you have to do is make sure he doesn’t fall in love.”
The thought gives me pause. The connection between us was so immediate, so undeniable. I would fall in love with Ben again in a hundred versions of reality. I can’t help but think it will be the same for him. And if so, Nurse’s offer doesn’t necessarily ensure that he won’t die again.
“You can bring Gemma and Mike together again, help Ariel find the peace she so desperately needs, and it will be as if this mistake never happened,” she says. “At least in one version of the world.”
As if this mistake never happened. Ben and I were not a mistake. Love is never a mistake. The fact that she can speak those words proves she was never the person I thought she was. I don’t trust her, and I won’t let her steal Ben from me. I’d rather go to hell than be her puppet for another day. “No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“But you could do good work for the cause,” she says. “Ariel needs you. I see darkness in her future without Ambassador intervention.”
“I see death in her future,” I whisper, knowing it’s true, knowing that there are worse things that could happen.
Nurse’s eyes grow cold. “Yes. So do I. In this reality, at least. And perhaps that’s best.”
“You … are … a monster.” I barely have the strength to force out the words. The end is nearly here. I can feel it.
“I am a god. There’s a difference.” If I could laugh, I would. Instead, I turn my face to the whisper on the wind. “Gemma will rise soon. I cannot hold her. This is your last chance. If you do this, you will never be one of us again,” Nurse says, voice tight. “Never. There are no second chances for people like you, Juliet.”
People like me. People who question? People who disobey? Disagree? Discuss? Distrust? People who make mistakes? People who love so hard it hurts and heals and then hurts all over again?
I don’t ask her what she means. I don’t care anymore. I only know that I am grateful when she pulls in a sharp breath and the real Gemma cries out my name. “Ariel? Oh my god. Oh my god! Is that Ben? Who did this? Oh my god!”
“Help,” I whisper, hoping she knows what to do.
“Oh god. You’re alive. Hold on. My phone’s dead, but I can call nine-one-one from the car,” she says, smoothing a trembling hand over my hair. “Hang on. Don’t you dare die. I love you, and I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll make everything better if you’ll just live.” She sobs, a sound of such grief I know that her profession of love is true, and I wonder if maybe I’ve been seeing Gemma through warped glass as well. If maybe she isn’t as awful as I wanted to believe, as I needed to believe to make it okay for me to love the boy I assumed was hers.
“I’ll be right back.” I hear her footsteps hurry through the squishing grass and then, a few moments later, the voice of the specter comes again.
“Come. Now,” she says, and I smile. Because I’m ready. And I’m not afraid.
I can see the change in her as she crosses the last few feet between us. Her dress is no longer torn, the hole in her chest has been replaced by smooth skin, and a scrap of lace is tucked in her collar. As she kneels by my side, a feeling of certainty and peace rises inside me and I know that Nurse and Romeo are wrong. I don’t know where this journey after death will take me, but it won’t be to the mist or to hell or anyplace dark or unnatural. She is pleased with me, smiling, her brown eyes steady and calm, though still not
quite right. She needs something to make her whole, something only I can give.
And so I do. I slide my hand into hers, even as my other hand reaches up, finding Ben’s face. “I love you,” I whisper, wanting those to be the last words I ever speak.
And they are.
TWENTY-FOUR
Death is a long, quiet sleep in a cool room. Cool and damp, with the scent of old stone and murder lingering in the air.
The thought makes me stir, helps me discover that I still have a body. One with which to feel the press of unforgiving marble, smell the oils they rubbed into Tybalt’s skin before interring him in the family tomb, in his own sarcophagus, only a few feet from where I now sleep.
Where I am buried.
My eyes fly open to more utter blackness. Open or closed, the sights are always the same in the tomb. The tomb. I am trapped inside it. Again. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. I shake my head, whimpering as my skull rolls against more hard stone. No, this isn’t real. This can’t be happening. It’s a dream, a nightmare, a hallucination.
My heart slams inside my chest even as my hands reach out, pounding against the roof of my prison, striking hard enough to make me cry out in pain as my knuckles hit and come away bruised. The sound leaps from my throat, strong and easy, helping slow my racing pulse.
I swallow. My throat doesn’t ache as it did at the end. I’m not thirsty; my mind doesn’t swim with confusion and fear. I shift again, feeling the clean linen of my skirts rub against my legs.
My thoughts hum inside my brain like dozens of angry bees. I’m back in my body—I can feel the rightness of being in my own skin with everything in me—but where am I? Where? Surely I can’t have gone back in time. Nurse said she had such power, but I refused her offer. This has to be a mistake, a trick of madness.
