by Stacey Jay
My finger tightens on the trigger. Tighter, tighter …
“Talk to me,” he begs.
“I’m done talking. I know what you are.”
He lifts one hand in the air, the one not holding the gun. “I’ve told you what I am.”
“I know you’re still a Mercenary.”
“No, I—”
“When I went to Gemma’s, there was an Ambassador in her mother’s body. She told me everything,” I say, unable to resist throwing the truth in his face. “She showed me how you killed me. How you shot me!”
Guilt flares in his eyes. “Please, Ariel. You don’t understand. I—”
“Shut up.”
“Please!”
“I told you, I’m done talking.”
“Then you don’t have to talk.” He takes a cautious step forward. I shift my body, blocking his view of the boy hidden behind me. I can’t let him see, not until I’m ready to fire on them both. “Just listen. Juliet was inhabiting your body the first time we met. I did shoot her, but only because I had no choice. It was the only way to protect her from—”
“I’ve had enough of your protection, and I don’t want to hear your lies.”
“They’re not …” He trails off, fear evident in the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He’s finally realizing the truth. That I’m beyond his reach. That he’s about to die. Once and for all. “Please, just let me tell you how I feel. One last time.”
“Love … yes …,” Romeo’s old body whispers, making me jump and my finger ease off the trigger.
I peek back to see him rocking side to side, his grin so innocent and happy, it makes me want to cry. He’s more pathetic than scary. He’s as handsome as the boy in my dreams, but empty inside, a damaged thing I didn’t think could speak. He was eerily quiet today in the barn, so silent and still that at first I thought he was dead.
The Ambassador told me he’s Romeo’s soul specter. When Romeo’s soul went to live inside the dead, this was what was left behind. Romeo hasn’t lived inside this body for hundreds of years, but he wants to. He planned to kill me to earn the privilege.
Instead, I’ll kill him. If Romeo’s host and his specter are killed within a few moments of each other, Romeo’s reign of terror will end. He won’t be able to inhabit a new body. He’ll be truly dead, once and for all.
But so will this poor thing. Look at it. It’s like killing a puppy.
I grit my teeth and turn back to Romeo, taking aim, remembering the way I gave him every part of me—body and soul—while he plotted my death. I think about the shocked, betrayed faces of all the other people he turned or killed. I remember the girl in the tomb, her eyes closing in pain as her blood leaked out onto the floor.
If anyone deserves to die, it’s Romeo. And I’m not really committing murder. Dylan’s already dead, and Romeo should have died hundreds of years ago. This is justice, no matter how wrong it feels to aim a gun at someone’s heart.
“I love you, Ariel,” he says, voice breaking.
“Gemma’s mom said you’d say that. She said you’d never admit you’re lying. Because you need me to love you in order to make killing me worth your while.”
“Killing you was never on my agenda. Never.”
“Mrs. Sloop said you’d say that, too.”
“Mrs. Sloop …” He moves closer with slow, steady steps. “She wouldn’t be a redhead by any chance, would she? Pretty? About forty? Wears a lot of khaki?”
His question confuses me, and the gun dips a few inches toward the floor.
“Pale skin, dark brown eyes,” he continues. “Smells like vanilla?”
“Yes, but I—”
“She’s the witch who sent me here!” His eyes spark with excitement. He really thinks I’m going to believe more of his crap. “She’s not a witch, she’s an Ambassador, but it doesn’t matter. She’s the one who gave me this gun, and I can only imagine what lies she told you this afternoon. She’s trying to turn us against each—”
“Shut up.”
“Ariel, please …” He looks like he’s going to cry, like it’s breaking his heart to see how much I hate him. “I can explain everything. I still love you.” He lifts his hands at his sides. “I’ve been where you are, and I—”
“I know where you’ve been.” I imagine all the blood he’s spilled dripping from his pleading hands. “I saw all the people you killed. I saw how you laughed while you ripped them apart with your bare hands.”
“I used to be a brutal, sick bastard. I told you that, but I—”
“You didn’t tell me you killed Juliet. When you were both young and she loved you. Trusted you.” His face pales, but he doesn’t stop taking careful steps toward me. I’ve got a minute, maybe less. I have to focus on the truth, not the hurt in his eyes or the way an insane part of me wants to believe he really cares. “I saw the way you tricked her. She would have killed you if she’d been strong enough to pull the knife from her chest.”
“You’re right. I should have told you that, and a lot of other things, but I …” He swallows. “I’m sorry. I needed you to love me. I didn’t know it at the time, but I needed to love you, too. I …”
Sirens sound in the distance. I steady the gun on his heart. I have to do this. Before he makes a fool of me yet again.
“Please, Ariel,” he says, in a voice that mimics caring so perfectly. “Look at me. You know I’ve told the truth about everything that matters.”
He’s close enough to touch now, but I can’t seem to squeeze the trigger. He leans in until the barrel of the gun is kissing his chest and the smell of him reaches out, connecting with something inside of me. A soft, human something.
I grit my teeth and will the soft places hard again. “This is for the people you’ve hurt and the people you won’t live to hurt.” My entire arm shakes; my hand begins to sweat. “This is for—”
“The greater good,” he says at the same time I do. My elbow spasms and my arm goes limp, the gun sagging between us.
“That’s what the Ambassador inside Gemma’s mother told me when she gave me this gun,” he says, motioning over his shoulder to the stage. I glance behind him, but see nothing. The curtains are drawn. But still, somewhere deep inside, I start to wonder. What if …
“She said killing you would be for the greater good, a noble sacrifice. She thinks it’s better for you to die than to become a force for evil. But I don’t believe her.” He steps so close, I have to tilt my head back to look into his eyes. “I’ll never believe that killing you is good or noble. I love you, and I know you’re a better person than I am. Don’t let the Ambassadors or the Mercenaries turn you into something you’re not.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re not a person who thinks it’s okay to knock your best friend unconscious.”
My mouth goes dry. “How did you—”
“She came here. To warn me. She’s worried about you.”
“I was trying to protect her,” I say, but I hear the lie in my words.
“You don’t believe that. Any more than you believe it was okay to shoot a gun in a crowded cafeteria. Or that it’s okay to kill the person you loved,” he adds softly. “Not when he’s standing in front of you, promising you are the best thing that ever happened to him.”
His eyes are shining. I know I should hate him for his fake tears and his false words, but I don’t. All I feel is confused and sad and possessed by the almost overwhelming urge to lay my cheek against his chest. If he’s a liar, he’s too good at it for me to see through him. If he’s telling the truth …
Well, he’s still too good, and I’m as stupid as I’ve ever been.
“I’m going to put my gun down,” he says. “The Ambassador inhabiting Mrs. Sloop says she can’t hurt you because it goes against her magic, but I wouldn’t risk it. Run out the side door and hide where no one will find you. The police will be here any second. I’ll tell them I didn’t see what happened.” He wipes the gun on his shirt and throws it away. The sound
as it lands on the floor makes me jump.
He dropped his gun. He’s not going to kill me. He’s not even going to defend himself. For the first time since witnessing my own murder this afternoon, the buzzing anger goes quiet and my mind feels like it’s mine again.
The first thing I register is relief, and then … horror. Complete, absolute horror. “Oh my god.” I drop my gun, flinching when it hits the ground by my feet. “I … I almost—”
“But you didn’t.” He wraps his arms around me, and pulls me against him for a fierce moment before pushing me toward the door. “Now run. Hurry. I love—”
“No. You don’t understand.” The sirens are loud now, but I can’t leave him here. “She told me how to kill you forever. I was supposed to shoot you, then shoot the other boy.”
“What other boy?”
“It … that … It’s in there. She did something to him with magic. I tied him up.” I point to the room behind us, my arm trembling, the insanity of the day catching up with me, making me feel like I’m literally going to fall apart. Everything is so fragile. My body, my mind, the line between right and wrong and good and evil.
I can’t believe I hurt Gemma. I can’t believe I shot a gun, or that I almost killed someone. Killed Romeo. Who loves me. Whom I love. Oh my god, I—
“Who’s in there, Ariel? You have to—”
“It’s you. The way you looked on the hill,” I mumble. “She said you’d die for all eternity if I shot you, then shot the specter of your soul right after.”
Romeo doesn’t move, but I see the wheels turning behind his eyes. He looks … excited, and I’m more confused than ever. “Has she come out from behind the curtain?”
I glance over his shoulder. “No.”
“Come on. Hurry!” He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the coatroom as sirens howl and horns blare closer than ever. The emergency vehicles have reached the school parking lot. The police will be here any second.
“Wait, we have to—”
He wraps his arm around my waist and lifts me off my feet as he rushes forward. “This body is what I was looking for this morning. If I touch it, I can go back inside it and stay with you.”
“What?”
“I know it’s hideous, and I would never ask you to—” He stumbles through the door, but freezes a step inside. His mouth falls open. For a person who said he knew what was in here, he looks pretty surprised.
“Come now!” The thing on the floor lights up when he sees Romeo. He reaches his arms out like a child, the scraps of clothing still covering his thin body flapping with his excitement.
“I can’t believe this.” Romeo’s arm grows loose around me. “This isn’t … This is …”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what I’m apologizing for, only that sorry feels like the most inadequate thing I’ve ever said. I’m still half-numb, but once the numbness wears off, I know the mental backlash is going to be awful. I’m even crazier than I thought, a gullible loser who doesn’t know who or what to believe.
“You don’t understand.” He turns to me, a smile stretching his face. “My body is whole. It was rotten and falling apart. I—”
“And it will be again.” Mrs. Sloop is suddenly behind us. We spin to see her standing in the doorway, hands pressed together and golden light building between her palms. “I won’t let you have this. I don’t care how pretty your soul has become. You don’t deserve freedom, and she doesn’t deserve life. It took less than a day to tempt her to murder. You’re both dangerous, and I—”
“Ariel, run!” Romeo dives for her legs. For a second, I think he’ll knock her down. I imagine grabbing him and pulling him out the door into the gym, but her foot flashes out at the last second, catching him in the stomach, knocking him back into the shelf against the wall.
“Stop!” I beg, but it’s too late.
She opens her hands, and the ball of light leaps forward, heading straight for Romeo. He has shoved the heavy shelves off his back and made it to his feet, but he’ll never get out of the way in time. She’s going to hit him, hurt him, maybe even kill him.
Before I know it, I’m moving, hurling myself into the magic’s path, reaching my arms out, out, out … I don’t know right from wrong, good from bad, but I know it’s easier to die for Romeo than it was to kill him.
As the light hits, sending me crashing into Romeo and sending both of us skidding toward the wall where his old body howls in fear, I hope that means something. I hope I’m better than I could have been. Or am at least better than I would have been without him.
I try to turn and look into his eyes, but my chest is on fire. I open my mouth to scream, but the fire spreads to my lungs and throat and mouth, and the world fades in a press of smothering gray.
TWENTY-FIVE
Romeo
Everything collides.
I wrap my arm around her and snatch a handful of my soul specter’s tattered old shirt, holding tight to my love and myself as the force of our combined momentum throws us against the wall in a knot of arms and legs and pain.
Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe touching the specter will be enough and I’ll be able to enter my old body and protect Ariel. The Ambassador said she couldn’t kill. Whatever magic she’s used shouldn’t be deadly.
I still have hope, a little, but then—
We slam to a stop. I look down just in time to see Ariel’s eyes close and her spine go limp. I swear I can feel the moment her soul steps away from her body. I try to scream at the Ambassador, to beg Ariel to come back, but I can’t make a sound. I’m falling to pieces, crumbling as the walls melt and the floor beneath us drops away.
I close my eyes, and the barrier of Dylan’s skin thins and fades. Ariel bleeds into me, and I bleed into my old self, and everything in the world is malleable and transparent and I finally see it for what it’s always been. A lie. A pretty lie made of curved light and faith in the solid nature of things that aren’t solid at all. There is no beginning and no end, and the forces separating here and now, then and there, are as fragile as spiderwebs pushed away with shaking hands.
There is only one thing solid enough to hold on to and it is her. I love her. She is my other half, my second chance, the only way in the world I could have learned to be more than a monster. Her weakness showed me my strength, her faith made me believe, her love made me whole. I will never forget her, and I won’t let her go.
The air gets hotter and hotter, and matter rearranges itself into flesh and bone and a rough, dirty floor beneath my cheek. But still I hold on, so tight my fingers cramp. And then … someone moans beside me.
My eyes open. It’s her. Ariel. She’s lying next to me, in this room with the coarse floor and the air filled with gray dust. It is … unbelievable. I reach out to smooth the tangled hair away from her face, and encounter something even more unbelievable. My hand. My real hand. I’m back in my own body, the living, breathing, coughing, choking—
I cover my mouth with my sleeve and cough until my throat feels bloody. The gray in the air isn’t dust; it’s smoke. There’s a fire. The building is on fire. We have to get out.
“Ariel!” I cough again as I come to my hands and knees, the rawness in my throat telling me I’ve been breathing the smoke-filled air too long already. “Ariel, wake up! We—”
The crack of splintering wood explodes behind me, shredding the air. I spin to see a blazing timber crash down onto rows of simple wooden benches. Above them, a stained-glass window reflects the writhing orange and red below. I catch the gaze of a Madonna dressed in blue holding a strange-faced baby, and experience a moment of terrible clarity.
I know this church. I don’t know how we’ve ended up here, but I know where we are. It’s the church I grew up in, the one where I fidgeted for hours on those same hard benches, the one where Benvolio and I joked that the baby in the stained glass had the same shriveled face as our great uncle, the church I wished I could have taken refuge in after I tricked Juliet into taking her own life in the tom
b not a hundred yards from its front door. The one that burned to the ground with Romeo Montague trapped inside in an alternate version of history. This version of history.
“Juliet.” A strange feeling, halfway between hope and terror, leaps inside of me.
Juliet might still be alive. She might be in the tomb, close enough to smell the smoke. If I can make it out …
I turn on my knees, taking in the rest of the church. The fire is everywhere, blocking the entrance and the lower windows on the left side. The flames haven’t reached the front of the church, where Ariel and I lie near the stone statue of Jesus on the cross, but they will soon. We have to get out.
“Ariel! Wake up!” I pull her onto my lap and shake her gently, willing her eyes to open. I don’t know how I’ve come to be back here, and I have even less of a clue how I brought her with me, but I need her to open her eyes. We may be able to get out—there’s a narrow path through the benches to our right that hasn’t started to burn—but not if I’m carrying her. If we don’t stay low to the ground, we’ll be overcome by the smoke.
“Please, Ariel,” I whisper into her ear, kissing the soft skin near her cheek. So soft and smooth and …
The scars. I pull back to search her face. The scars are gone, vanished, along with the glossy lipstick and sparkling eye shadow she smoothed on for the dance. Her face is clean and unmarked, and her hair is longer, falling in waves past the waist of a dress made of a coarsely woven gray fabric. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen in hundreds of years. I look down at myself, a part of me not surprised to see the same cloak I was wearing the day I was supposed to meet Friar Lawrence on the road outside Verona. But there is no blood on the sleeves.
I haven’t tricked Juliet. I haven’t yet sold my soul to darkness.
I pull Ariel closer, planning to drag her across the floor if I have to, but a flash of movement catches my eye. I turn in time to see a woman with red hair slip behind the metal screen where the priest waits to address his parishioners. It’s her. The Ambassador. She’s done this.
