“I couldn't do it,” I replied softly.
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Arianna suggested we go. She wanted to go visit my parents' graves.”
“And now she finds herself in one. Permanently.” For all the tension and anger apparent in his expression, I found only sadness in his tone when he spoke those words. The sister he had just reunited with was lost forever. No amount of magic could ever bring her back. The shame I felt in that moment was acute. I had been so caught up in my own survival and now was so focused on reuniting with Sean that I had temporarily forgotten the sacrifice she had made for me.
Again.
I didn't know what to say to him, so I said nothing. Instead, I stepped toward him and wrapped my arms around his waist and held him. After a moment's hesitation, his arms wound tightly around me. There was something glorious about that moment, something significant in that simple act. I sensed again that Gavin loved me.
And, more important than that, I believed he always had.
“I'm glad to see that you fared better than my sister,” he said with a wan smile. “I would be lying if I did not admit my surprise at seeing you here. Alive.”
“That makes two of us. I can assure you that what happened down there would shock you a whole hell of a lot more. It was bizarre. Utterly bizarre.”
“How is it that you got away?”
“A technicality, apparently. One that Deimos seemed all too happy to rub in Persephone's face once he had the chance.”
“How very curious,” he replied, though there was no curiosity to be found in his tone. “And what was this technicality?”
I sighed, looking up at Sean's apartment. I just wanted to go up there and see if he was back and okay. What happened in the Underworld could wait.
“Clearly it is something you don't feel like retelling right now,” he added astutely.
“I will tell you soon, I promise. But―”
“But you have something more pressing you need to do first,” he said, his gaze then drifting up to Sean's darkened apartment windows, acknowledging my desire to go him.
I nodded weakly.
His expression hardened.
“You will not find what you're looking for there, Ruby.”
“Please, I'm begging you. Can we not have this argument? Not tonight.”
“I am not trying to argue with you. I am simply stating a fact. A fact that you apparently will need to experience yourself before you believe me.” He stepped to the side, sweeping his arm out toward the building's entrance. “I expect to see you soon, my niece. We have much to discuss.”
Turning abruptly, he disappeared into the darkness.
The trip up to Sean's apartment was quick and purposeful. I was going to do this; I kept telling myself I would. I owed it to him. To me. To us.
With every step I took, I thought about what I wanted to say―how I could begin to apologize for my harsh judgment of him. But the words never quite came together.
How do you say you're sorry for turning your back on someone you love?
I soon found myself staring at the massive door that divided me from my fate, and while I tried to catch my breath, I wondered exactly what that fate would be. My skin prickled at the potential disaster that awaited me, making me want to turn and run. Sean had asked me to overlook his past once, and I told him I would. But instead, I had lied and condemned him over the one thing he couldn't quite seem to forgive himself for. He may have loved me, but even that love may not have proven strong enough to heal the wound my actions had left.
Not wanting to consider any longer whatever would be, I pounded on the door, calling his name.
Nothing.
I tried again, adding that I was there to apologize. I thought perhaps that would have helped.
Still nothing.
My heart started to race frantically. Trey had assured me that Sean would be fine. That he'd bring him back. Standing outside his apartment door, with only my echoes answering my calls, I wasn't so certain Trey had been right.
With shaky fingers, I turned to the keypad and entered the security code.
It didn't work.
My heart, which had been racing only seconds earlier, sank like the Titanic when I realized the implications of that altered code. Trey hadn't been wrong. I had. There was no point in me being there. Sean didn't want to see me. He had dropped that box off when I was sleeping for a reason.
He was as through with me as I had previously thought I was with him.
Sure, he didn't want to watch me become Persephone's pet or die at the hands of Deimos, but the space between not wanting me dead and wanting to take me back was as wide as the Acheron.
Try the knob.
“Really?” I shouted, my voice cracking slightly. “You think he left it unlocked? Do you know him at―” The handle turned freely and the door swung open without resistance. “...all.”
My mind still reeling, I stepped into the darkness that unlocked door had withheld. In my state of shock, it took a moment to realize that there was a very clear reason why the door hadn't been locked. It didn't really need to be.
Sean's place was deserted.
Chapter 41
I stood still while my heart stopped entirely.
He was gone. Really and truly gone.
When my brain was finally able to relay messages to my body, I raced to his bedroom, his bathroom, finding that they too had been stripped bare. Nothing remained. The place was white-glove clean.
Unwilling to accept that unthinkable reality, I sped to the kitchen, slipping as I rounded the island and crashing the side of my head into edge of the counter as I fell. While a stream of blood ran down my face, I tore open the doors and drawers, looking for something, anything, that proved that he had once lived there. Something that might have caused him to return.
But I knew that if I wasn't reason enough to stay, a pot wasn't going to make him come back.
I slumped back against the island, completely dejected―rejected. Irony was not my friend, and when it came to Sean, that's all I seemed to have left. We'd long thought it was timing that had it in for us, but I realized then that we had been wrong. Wrong about so much.
I closed my eyes and thought about the times I had spent in that apartment. The good. The bad. The ugly. And there had been plenty of all three. Regardless, all I saw there were memories that made me miss him more. I replayed the night I chose to overlook whatever checkered past he had accumulated over centuries of indentured service to his father. He had looked so pained and vulnerable. It was like seeing him―the real him―for the first time. I was a fool for turning on him so easily, even if my anger hadn’t been totally misplaced. Had I taken a moment or two to process the news before reacting, I would not have been sitting in his empty apartment alone.
I wouldn't have been alone again ever.
The tears wouldn't come to me, though I beckoned them. Perhaps my body thought I'd shed enough of them over Sean. Regardless, my sadness prevailed when I dragged myself to my feet, needing to leave. I did not want to be there any longer.
Just as I started toward the door, I heard the faintest noise. A light shuffling sound in the hallway alerted me to the fact that I was not alone. Knowing that danger had attached itself to me, I was certain that whatever was coming couldn't have been welcome.
But it was.
While I stood in the vast and empty living room, I watched as PC brothers filed in one by one. Jay was among them. His warm, familiar smile was muted by the tension in his expression. I gulped back a wave of fear. Were they there to collect me? Or worse yet, had Trey been wrong? Had the Underworld somehow leveled the playing field, leaving Sean just as vulnerable to death as the rest of us?
My knees buckled, and I nearly collapsed to the floor.
Then I saw him.
Words failed me. Instead of professing my most sincere apologies, I stared at him pathetically, simply relieved to see him alive. I hadn't expected an audience when I
decided to come to him that night. But an audience I had. And they didn't look like they were about to go anywhere.
Uncomfortable didn't begin to describe the situation we all found ourselves in. The brothers hovered just inside the apartment door, fanning out slightly. It looked as though they were awaiting Sean's command. Some didn't look especially happy to see me there. Sean didn't look too thrilled about it either.
When I could no longer stand the growing pressure the silence created, I cracked.
“So Persephone's one crazy bitch, huh?” I blurted out, immediately regretting it.
“Why are you here?” he asked, his voice even and controlled. I would have preferred to hear some semblance of emotion in it, even if it was anger.
“I got the box,” I whispered.
“As you were meant to. That's why I put it in your dresser.”
“Sean,” I sighed. “I need to talk to you.”
“No. You need to go,” he replied, still giving nothing away. I couldn't even read his energy.
“I was wrong,” I started, unsure of exactly where to start. My errors in judgment had been many.
“You were not wrong, and that is why you need to go.”
His response took me aback for a moment.
“No. No, I was wrong, Sean. I see that now.”
“You see nothing,” he bit out. “Everything you said was true. Everything Persephone said was too. I am what you fear I am, Ruby, and that is something I can never change.”
“Sean,” I said, leveling my voice, “you didn't know who Arianna was to me.”
“A fact that changes nothing. Now get out.”
“This is crazy,” I muttered to myself while my mind struggled to process the turn the conversation was taking. I had been prepared for him to turn me away because he was hurt. I had not been prepared for him to turn me away because I was right to leave him in the first place.
“You being here is crazy.”
“You would never have done what you did if you'd known, Sean. I know that.”
“It doesn't matter,” he said, his voice as cold as ice. “I enjoyed killing her, Ruby. I remember watching the life bleed from her fey eyes and the rush I felt when I captured her essence in that box.” I steadied myself against his cruel words while he approached me, his black eyes raging. “Is that what you need to hear? That I loved watching her take her last breath? That she begged for mercy and received none in return? Is that what you need to hear to confirm that I am as vile a creature as you judged me to be? Because I can tell you story after story after story that end just like that.”
“I don't understand,” I said softly while he continued to advance toward me.
“You couldn't possibly understand because you aren't me, which only furthers my reasoning for why you should leave and never see me again. You can't accept what you can't understand.”
“But I did accept you!” I argued. “I fucked it up for a bit, but I know now that I shouldn't have held your past against you. It's not your fault.”
“Not my fault?” he scoffed. “What about exterminating entire breeds of supernaturals is not my fault? The deaths I've caused? Lives I've ruined? Did someone make me do that? Who exactly is to blame?”
“Your father―Ares is to blame.”
“He is to blame for my DNA and nothing more,” he countered. “You like to pretty up your deluded version of my past by blaming things on him, but in reality, you do that because you can't handle the truths, so you shut them out with lies that are so much sweeter. Let me set you straight, Ruby. Let me tell you all about the man you loved so dearly.” He stood only inches away from me, and I didn't know what to feel. Sorrow and fear battled deep within me, riling Scarlet. She was not a fan of feeling threatened, whether intentionally or inadvertently.
“Love,” I whispered, unable to hold his menacing gaze. “The man I love.”
He laughed in response but not in a good way. It was the laugh his dark-eyed half let loose when his craziness was about to be unleashed on someone who would soon regret it.
“I used past tense for a reason, Ruby. You would never love someone who has done what I’ve done. You couldn't stomach it. Neither could Scarlet.”
I forced myself to look up into his blackened eyes. I saw nothing but eternal emptiness in them. More eternal than I'd ever seen before. He was truly another man in that moment. A man that could be capable of unspeakable acts of depravity.
“You may have done those things,” I said, forcing strength into my voice, “but the Sean I love did not. I know this. Your two halves are no more one and the same than Scarlet and I are. I don't blame your lighter half for Arianna's death.”
An emerald glow slowly penetrated the darkened pools in his eyes.
“You don't want someone capable of what I’ve done,” he repeated, softening slightly.
“I do,” I replied, holding steadfast.
Then his eyes went black and cold.
“No!” he roared, leaning into my face, “you don't! And do you know why? Because who can love someone who eradicates others for sport—for entertainment? Who wants to be with someone who killed and killed and killed for an eternity, trying to fill a void that couldn't be filled? Do you? Is that who you want?”
“That's not you,” I told him, my lip quivering slightly.
“Am I not the one who did all kinds of depraved things to the women I was with, things that would have made your Utah experience look pleasant? Wasn't I the one who hunted your kind, not only because I was ordered to, but also because I wanted to? The being responsible for damn near singlehandedly eradicating the fey?” He stared at me in my silence. “No. No, you don't want someone that did those things, Ruby. You don't. I know you. You can't handle this. You can't handle the truth of my words.”
“That's not you,” I repeated, shaking my head in negation while my eyes pressed tightly closed to retain the tears that were threatening to escape. “It's not. I don't believe you. You're different now.”
“You don't want to believe me because you can't deal with it. You can't comprehend that I could so callously kill without thought or conscience, let alone enjoy it. I enjoyed everything I did to everyone I did it to. How's your mind handling that? Is that enough for you to see that you were right to run out of here that night, or do you need more? Because there is more. There's always more.”
“That was before,” Jay called from behind Sean. In the intensity of the moment, I'd forgotten that Sean and I weren't alone. All my energy had been focused on warding off the onslaught of hate Sean was throwing my way.
“That does not matter,” Sean snarled, turning to silence Jay.
“It'll matter to her,” Jay continued, unfazed by Sean's violent demeanor. “You did those things, Sean, but that was before the vision.”
“One more word...,” Sean threatened before slowly turning back to me.
“Vision?” I asked, confusion tainting my tone. “What vision?”
“You need to go. Now.” Sean turned and walked away, dismissing me presumably for the last time if I did nothing.
“And you need to tell me,” I barked, grabbing his arm in an attempt to halt him.
“You haven't heard enough?” he asked sarcastically.
“The vision. Tell me what Jay is talking about.”
“Jay is a dead man who doesn't know what he's saying,” Sean growled, turning his attention to Jay quickly.
“Why would you kill him? Because he knows something that might exonerate you from the torture you're putting yourself through?” I asked, my own anger rising through my sadness. “You like asking questions so much, so here are a couple for you. I've never seen this blood-crazed killer you're so hellbent on painting yourself as, so why is that? I've seen hints of your dark side, but even he wouldn't do what you say you've done. Where is that guy? I want to talk to him. I want you to show me that you're still what you think you are―who you punish yourself for being.” I glanced at Jay before playing a card I wasn't certain
was safe to play at all. “If you truly believe you're still that man, I want you to kill Jay right now. Kill him for interfering. You've killed for less. Let me see it. Do it, Sean. Kill him.”
Sean's blade was drawn and pressed to Jay's neck before I could process what I was seeing. Suddenly my bluff seemed like a terrible idea.
“He saw you,” Jay ground out, trying not to force his neck onto the sharp edge that Sean held tightly against it while he spoke.
“Shut up,” Sean snarled.
“He was never the same again,” Jay continued, ignoring Sean's threat.
“You will stop. Now!” Sean roared as blood started to trickle down Jay's neck.
“You changed him, Ruby. Even before you met him―”
“Enough!” Sean yelled, shoving Jay through the doorway violently. I couldn't see if he'd killed him in the process or not.
“Jay!” I cried, lunging for the landing.
“He was never the same after that dream, Ruby,” Jay continued from the stairwell. “We all saw the change in him. Only I knew why.”
I couldn't breathe.
Sean's anger and loathing had nearly suffocated me, but it was then that I realized it hadn't been meant for me. He hated himself for what he'd done. What he had been. Even though all that was gone, he could not overlook the monster he had once been. He did not want to ask me to do something that he himself could not do. It was his Achilles heel. His only weakness—aside from me.
Until I met you, I wasn't certain I had one.
He had spoken those words to me long ago, and they then rang through my mind. It wasn't the day he physically met me that he had spoken of. It was the day I entered his dreams.
Our connection knew no bounds.
“I awakened your soul,” I whispered.
He visibly tensed at my words.
“Everyone out,” he growled, though the bite behind his words had diminished considerably. The boys filed out without a second glance. I, however, did not. “You too, Ruby.”
STRAYED Page 37
